On The Winter Solstice
by Artemis Day
Summary: It may be unlikely, downright impossible even, but in the world of fanfiction, anything can happen. A collection of Bucky/Jane fics and drabbles.
1. Plumbing Problems

**A/N: This will be where I post any and all Bucky/Jane prompt fills that I get on tumblr or otherwise. Not that I'm expecting to get a lot or anything, but for the five or six of us actually into this weird little pairing, this collection is for you.**

 **This was an anon prompt. Incidentally, said anon came up with the ship name Winter Solstice, so kudos to them for that one.**

* * *

"Ugh, fuck," Bucky growled.

Jane followed the sound of his voice from the living room to the basement. Bucky had been down there for close to an hour trying to fix that leaky pipe, ever since breakfast. She had just been thinking about going down to check on him, and then came the splash and his shouting.

"James?" Jane descended the staircase. Cold air wrapped around her and she regretted not grabbing a coat first. "Honey, are you okay?"

Jane took one step off the stairs and immediately jumped back. Water soaked through her sneakers and her socks, chilling her feet. As uncomfortable as it was, it couldn't hold a candle to how Bucky must be feeling, standing beside a broken pipe pouring water all over the floor. He was completely drenched, water dripping down his hair and clothes. His metal arm, thankfully waterproof, held a detached piece of pipe that was crushed and bent out of shape. It was easy to put two and two together and figure out what had happened.

"So are we calling a plumber now?" Jane asked, stifling a laugh.

She really wished she'd brought a camera for that 'angry wet cat' look of his. Steve and Darcy would've gotten a real kick out of it.


	2. Ever I Saw

**A/N: This was an anon request.  
**

* * *

He thinks about time as 'before' and 'after'.

Before the man on the bridge, there isn't really a lot. Just flashes of things.

A white room here.

A man in a lab coat there.

A gun in his hand that he aims at a man in a car.

A lot of blood.

A lot more screaming.

And pain. More pain than he could ever imagine. So much pain, that he wishes for death.

But death never comes, only cold.

Cold. Cold. Cold.

He hates the cold most of all.

* * *

After the man on the bridge, there is a lot more warmth.

It comes from several places, like the fire he makes for himself as he huddles in a decaying building. Or the pictures in his head of a dark haired woman who sits at the side of his bed and hugs him tight, because it was just a bad dream sweetie, go back to sleep now.

He sees a lot of pictures in his head in the after time.

Some of them are of the dark haired woman. She might be alone or she might be with a man in glasses, who kisses her cheek as she hands him the evening paper. She might have a little girl next to her, whom she teaches to wash dishes and clean vegetables. She might be speaking to a blonde headed woman, who sits on the porch with her and laughs as they watch him and a scrawny blonde boy run around in the grass.

One day, he starts remembering names.

The blonde headed woman is Sarah. He remembers that name first, because he doesn't think he ever called the other woman by hers.

One day, he remembers the boy stuffing newspaper in his shoes so he can be taller.

One day, he remembers his name, too.

They find him trapped, helpless and alone. He hates how afraid he is when the two of them approach, but he wants to smile when he recognizes the man on the bridge.

No, that's not right.

Steve.

Steve is his name.

* * *

They go back to a small, one bedroom apartment in the dead of night, under a cloak of shadows. Steve wants to go to the hospital, but the other one—Steve calls him Sam—says they shouldn't.

Too risky, Sam says.

He agrees.

Steve doesn't like it. He hates the thought that his old friend is a wanted man, but such is the way of things.

He tries not to sleep that night, because he hasn't yet learned how to do it without the cold coming back for him.

It always comes in his sleep, when he's vulnerable. A silent predator relentless in catching its prey.

The only way around it is to never be vulnerable.

The only way around that is to never sleep.

He lasts two days, and then he wakes the entire building with his screams.

* * *

It's been three weeks.

Three weeks, four days, ten hours, twenty-seven minutes and eighteen seconds to be exact.

His arm has been acting up. Some of the joints are shorting out and his pinky finger won't curl anymore.

He hears Steve on the phone, but doesn't know who he's calling. His name is mentioned a lot.

Five minutes later, Steve hangs up.

"Get dressed," he tells him. "I may have found someone who can help you."

He doesn't say anything, just goes to get his shirt and his jacket on. He never speaks even when him and Steve are in the back of Sam's new car.

When he thinks about it, he hasn't said much of anything since they found him.

* * *

They bring him to stronghold hidden in the forest. There are a few people walking around, and some of them are in lab coats.

It takes Steve twenty minutes to calm him down after the first one passed, and then they use a back entrance to get in. This one is empty, save for the small, skinny figure of a woman hunched over one of those glowing, beeping things everyone seems to have now. Her face is hidden by thick brown hair, but he can hear her talking to herself. She sounds upset.

They walk by her without a second glance, and she doesn't look up to greet them. She might not know they are there at all.

His eyes linger on her for a while after they pass.

They stop in a room where an average looking man in a suit is waiting. Steve calls him 'Phil' and seems oddly happy to see him.

Phil shakes his hand, almost like they are both normal men. He smiles as he speaks aloud the name that Steve calls him, and Sam calls him, and everyone else used to call him.

He says that he's a big fan, and Steve laughs.

The three of them talk, while he sits on the couch and stares out the window. It's almost sunset, and he can hear the birds and the squirrels in the trees. He hears them better than he should, he realizes. The sound is almost calming.

The door swings open just as the sky turns orange. The woman who storms in is the very same one he saw in the hall. He knows because of the tiny stain on the back of her jacket, and the shape of her fingers that she clenches into fists. He's been trained to notice all kinds of little things.

Big things, too.

Now that he sees her face, he notices how pretty she is. Beautiful, even.

And she's pissed. Really pissed.

She makes a beeline for Phil. His reaction says that these two have a history together, and not a very good one.

She starts yelling about being dragged halfway across the globe and threats to her research and waiting around for five hours after said dragging across the globe and threats to her research. She mentions Thor a couple of times, and he remembers Steve talking about the Thunder god once during breakfast.

Apparently, he's real.

And he's a friend of Steve's.

That's… different.

At least, he thinks it is.

Phil tries his best to appease her. He says things like, 'I'm sorry you've been waiting so long, Ms. Foster' and 'this is an extremely delicate situation that must take precedence' and 'I will see that you are reimbursed for your plane fare and hotel expenses.'

The woman—Ms. Foster—is not moved. He can see why. Phil's words, while kind on the surface, sound distracted and vaguely patronizing, even to his ears.

Now it's her turn to talk, and she shoots back with things like, 'It's Dr. Foster to you, Agent' and 'I don't care how secret your little agency is, I will not be at your beck and call whenever you want' and 'Keep your stupid money, and use it to buy some better people skills why don't you?'

There's something about the way she does it that strikes him.

Something about the red in her cheeks and the way she all but stands on her tip toes, because she's so small compared to the men in the room, but she has to make it so they don't know it. There's something about the sheer moxy of her, to yell and make demands of someone he's sure has the power to destroy her life with one word.

It reminds him of someone.

More than that, it makes him smile.

Makes him grin even.

And then, just like that, like there has never been a time when he thought he no longer could, he laughs.

He laughs long, and he laughs loud.

And now, everyone is silent.

They're all staring at him.

Phil and Sam look bemused. Steve is in shock. Ms. Foster—no, _Dr_. Foster—looks like she doesn't know whether to yell some more or turn an even brighter shade of red.

"Just what is so funny?" she snaps at him.

He gets up. She's even smaller than he thought. He could reach out and pat her on the head if he wanted to.

"It's just…" he stops. His voice is dry and scratchy from disuse. "You have a lot of spunk, doll. I like that."

A funny kind of sounds emits from Steve's mouth. He would laugh again, but Dr. Foster is still has her eyes on him, and he finds he can't look away.

"I'm James," he says, holding out a hand. The flesh one, of course. The other one is still too damaged to shake with. "People call me Bucky. It's nice to meet you."

She stares at him for a very long time, and then, almost timidly, she takes his hand.

She feels warm.

He thinks the after time might not be as bad as he thought.


	3. Traditional

**A/N: Requested by omnicat.  
**

* * *

It was a well-known fact to those close to Jane Foster that she loved Christmas.

Of course, very few people were close to Jane Foster, so it really wasn't that well-known at all.

For the handful of people who could boast a close, personal bond to her, the first of December brought about a stark change in the scientist.

She smiled easier.

She laughed harder.

She found any excuse she could to go to the store and buy another set of ornaments for the tree or a bigger wreath for the front door.

As Darcy Lewis put it, Jane Foster was one small step above being a Who down in Whoville during the holidays.

That was something Bucky Barnes would have liked to know before he put the ring on her finger and moved into her house. He liked Christmas well enough, but one could only hear the same piano version of 'Oh Christmas Tree' so many times before it started to get annoying. After a few days of that, and the Santa Claus hat Jane insisted looked adorable on him, Bucky was getting pretty Christmas-ed out.

And they hadn't even decorated the tree yet!

"Okay, could you bring that box in here, too? Just leave it over there with the others for now."

Steve carried the large brown box of ornaments into the living room as per Jane's direction, dropping it on top of two others, while the largest box of all sat open at Jane's feet. From it, she withdrew all manner of baubles and candy canes; singing snowmen and Santa Clauses. Every so often, she'd push a bunch of them into Bucky's hands and begin issuing commands like a very small and skinny drill sergeant.

"Put that one right there next to the reindeer ornament, and that one… right there. Right above that Santa's toyshop model. Make sure not to bunch them too close together, or else the whole tree looks uneven."

"You really put a lot of thought into this," Bucky said, placing the ornaments on the tree at an acceptable distance from the others. "Don't you, babe?"

Jane smiled, in that cute way of hers that always made him want to kiss the life out of her.

"Christmas means a lot to me," she said. "It always has, so I guess I get a little enthusiastic."

"Enthusiastic?" Darcy shouted as she re-entered the house through the kitchen door, carrying with her a mess of tangled Christmas lights that almost hid her from view. "Try obsessive. No offense, Jane, but I'm starting to wonder if you're capable of enjoying anything without getting completely crazy over it."

"Knock it off, Darcy," Jane said.

"Come on, you know it's true. You spend eleven months out of the year crazy about science, then December comes around, and suddenly, you're a Christmas elf. I'm pretty sure your copy of the dictionary did not come with the word 'moderation' in it."

"Darcy, don't you have the lights to work on?"

"What do you think I've been doing for the past half hour?" Darcy shook the hunk of wires, the tiny lightbulbs clattering together. She pointed at Steve. "Hey, Captain Handsome, mind helping a girl out?"

"Sure," Steve said, having long since gotten used to Darcy and all her flirtatiousness. He wiped his hands off on his jeans and crossed into the kitchen to meet her.

"Good luck with her," Bucky sang, wigging his eyebrows.

"Shut up, jerk."

They shut the door behind them, and from the side of the window, Bucky watched as Darcy pulled her hat down over reddening ears. She shot a glare Steve's way, no doubt annoyed by how comfortable he was in thirty degree weather with just a t-shirt on.

"Okay, I think we've done all we can with this side of the tree," Jane said. She'd taken a quick step back to admire her work.

"I think we've done all we can period," Bucky said. "The tree looks great, Jane, but I'm pretty sure it's going to topple over if you put anything else on it."

"I hope not," Jane said, "because there's still one more thing we have to do."

She went for the box Steve had just brought in, and pulled from it a brilliant silver star wrapped in bubble wrap. A wire hung from the back end, wrapped around the base but coming loose as Jane removed the wrapping and held the star up. It shined bright, reflecting the uncovered glass window.

Humming a cheery rendition of Jingle Bells, Jane stood with the star in front of the tree, craning her neck up to the bare top. Her song slowed as she seemed to realize that her five foot frame really wasn't built for high places.

"I could do that," Bucky said.

Jane waved him off. "I always put the star on the tree."

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

"I usually have a footstool. Where the hell did I put that thing anyway…"

She started looking around the living room, zeroed in on the hallway closet, and was soon digging through the mass of clean linens and cleaning products. Ten minutes later, she still hadn't found it.

"It would be easier to just let me do it," Bucky called to her.

"Maybe," Jane said, kicking the door closed, "but it wouldn't be traditional."

"Does it really matter?"

"It matters to me."

"I think you're just being stubborn."

"I think you're just rubbing it in how much taller than me you are. Again."

"Well, if the boot fits."

Bucky grinned and put a hand on Jane's head. She always hated when he did that, and somehow, it only made him enjoy it more. As she opened her mouth to protest, Bucky seized the opportunity, lifting her up to claim her lips with his own. She squeaked in surprise, but quickly melted into him. Lips and tongues moved in tandem as Bucky plucked the star from Jane's slacken grip and reached up. By the time she noticed the shift in position, the star was perfectly placed in its spot atop the tree.

"You jerk! You did that on purpose."

"Yup," Bucky said with a smirk. "I did this on purpose, too."

He kissed her again, his hands creeping under her shirt and bra strap, and suddenly, Jane had nothing to complain about.


	4. Werewolf Christmas Party

**A/N: This was not a request, just something I wanted to write based on the fact that Christmas this year is going to be on the full moon.**

 **So this takes place in the same universe as my other oneshot, By the Light of the Moon. It's a few months after the events of that story, and Jane and Bucky are in an established relationship.**

* * *

Bucky's pack met up in the forest on the edge of town, just a few miles away from the park where he and Jane first met. The path to and from was quick and easy to follow, with minimal risk of human encounters. It gave the werewolves a perfect opportunity to stretch their legs once a month, and Jane the ability to visit her boyfriend whenever she wanted, like tonight.

Humming a Christmas carol under her breath, Jane walked by a pair of circular bushes and a large oak tree in a fork in the road. She took a left turn. She was officially three quarters of the way there at this point. She could already see the light of the bonfire, and hear the many whoops and howls of those gathered to celebrate.

A young man with white hair leaned against a tree at the edge of the brush, smoking a cigarette. He stiffened at the sight of her.

"Oh," he said, stamping out the cigarette. "Didn't know you'd been invited."

Jane forced herself to smile.

"Merry Christmas, Pietro," she said. "It's nice to see you again."

"Uh-huh." Pietro walked back into the clearing. "Hey, Barnes! Your vampire is here."

Jane tried not to wince at his tone. She always preferred dealing with Pietro's sister precisely for this reason. While it was clear neither one of them wanted her around, Wanda was at least polite.

"Don't worry about them," Bucky once said of the two omega wolves. "They've had some bad experiences with vampires, but they'll warm up to you. You're impossible not to love."

Somehow, Jane didn't share his optimism. Not with Pietro flashing his teeth at her when no one was looking, and Wanda keeping a distance of at least five feet between them at all times.

Oh well, at least the rest of the pack seemed to like her.

"You made it," Natasha said, the beta wolf coming up to hug Jane while her mate gave her a smile.

"We thought you'd gotten lost," Clint said. "Thought we'd have to send a search party for you."

"Oh, come on, I'm not that late," Jane said, smiling at their playful jibes. "Where's James? I haven't seen him yet."

She was then quite suddenly wrapped in a pair of powerful arms and pulled back against a rock hard body. Warm lips kissed the shell of her ear.

"Boo," he said.

Jane squeaked and giggled as Bucky's fingers found the most sensitive part of her stomach. "Stop it! That tickles."

"That's what you got for being late." He did it again, faster this time.

"I- I'm not l-late!" Jane was laughing so hard at this point that the entire pack was staring at them. "L-let go!"

"No can do, doll," he said with a grin. "It's Christmas Eve, and I haven't even gotten a kiss yet."

He turned her around and pressed his lips firmly to hers, taking all that he wanted from her. It was a good thing he kept his arms around her, because Jane was definitely going to swoon if he kept that up.

"Hey, boss," someone shouted, "you think you and your girl can stop sucking face for two seconds? You're making me sick over here."

Bucky growled into Jane's mouth and then reluctantly pulled away.

"That's not us, Roth, it's the booze. Why don't you lay off it for a while?"

"Why don't you get a room?" Roth shouted back. "Or are you rubbing it in that you don't have to transform tomorrow, so you get to spend the whole day doing your girlfriend?"

"Who says I have to wait until tomorrow for that?" Bucky shot them a positively evil look and then took Jane by the hand. "Come on, Jane, let's go."

"What?" He'd dragged her three steps towards his cabin before Jane came back to herself and dug her heels in the mud. "James, you can't just drag me off for sex in the middle of a party!"

"Yes, I can," he said, tugging her wrist just a little bit harder.

"No, you can't."

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't."

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't."

Bucky dragged her back into his embrace and kissed her breathless, his tongue working over her until Jane really did swoon.

"Yes, you can," she mumbled in a daze.

Bucky smirked and drew her up in his arms, walking towards the cabin to the applause and cheers of his wolf pack.

"Go get her, Barnes!" one of them shouted.

"Already got her," he shouted back, and then he kick the front door shut behind them and dimmed down the lights.


	5. First Kiss

**A/N: This was an anonymous request and takes place in the same universe as 'Ever I Saw'.**

* * *

"I think I'm possessed," Jane said as she lost the wooden spoon in the thick cake batter.

"Why's that?" Darcy asked. She'd been sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through a textbook with her ipod on and generally being in all ways unhelpful, since early in the morning when Jane began her task. "Is it because you're trying to make a birthday cake or because you're making it for the super soldier slash former assassin who totally has a crush on you?"

"He does not have a crush on me." Jane gripped the spoon with both hands and held the bowl of hardened dough between her knees, ready to pull. "He just... likes my company."

"Right, sure," Darcy said, putting the book aside. "He only goes from brooding and gloomy to smiley happy puppy every time you walk in the room, but I'm sure that doesn't mean a thing."

With the bowl still clenched in her thighs, Jane waddled around to face the window, bending over so that not even the reflection of her pink cheeks could be seen. The truth was, she _had_ noticed all the ways Bucky Barnes seemed to light up whenever she came around. How he would stand up straight with his shoulders back and talk out loud where before he would whisper. Every other day, there was a message from Steve on her phone, inviting her out for drinks or to a party, and every time, Jane knew it was because he wanted to make his best friend happy.

How strange it was, when Jane looked back, that a single accidental meeting in the middle of Coulson's hellhole of a base, after days without sleep and one very rocky flight from London, could have led to this. She hadn't known what to think when her tirade against SHIELD and their constant jerking her around brought tears of laughter to the strange, but handsome man's eyes. Anymore than she had upon learning that he was someone she once learned about in a history book.

And a formerly brainwashed HYDRA assassin Captain America and co. were working on rehabilitating.

That... had taken some processing.

But here she was, three whole months later, living in New York City with superheroes and fellow scientists and what had to be the most fascinating man she had ever met in her life.

"Darcy, you know that Sergeant Barnes has been through a lot." Jane tugged again on the spoon. Still nothing. "Captain Rogers told me just the other day that he's still trying to piece together his memory. I highly doubt that with everything else going on in his life, he'd be looking for a girlfriend."

One final, powerful tug did not release the spoon from it's batter-y prison, but it did send the entire bowl flying towards the door. Within seconds, there was a creak, then a smash, followed by a shriek and a crash of porcelain against plaster. Bucky stood in the doorway, his arm still up from deflecting the flying projectile. Darcy was flat on the floor, the bowl having hit the wall just a foot over her head. Shards of ceramic embedded in the dough slid a few inches down the wall before the mixture solidified, and that was just perfect because Jane would be up all night trying to clean that.

If it were anyone else, she probably would have screamed. Stress was not good for Jane these days and an extra hour and a half away from her work was exactly what she didn't need.

Since it was Bucky Barnes, Jane smiled pleasantly and waited for him to relax from his fighting stance.

"Sorry about that," he mumbled. "I was just coming to see if you needed help."

"You didn't have to," Jane said. She took the towel he held out for her and cleaned her hands. "It's your birthday cake. You should be surprised when you see it."

"I don't much like surprises," he said, and Jane kicked herself. Just like her to open her big, stupid mouth and say something that would upset him.

"Well, I think I'm going to have to start over," she said weakly, eyeing the mess one more time. "Need a new mixing bowl, too. You can help if you want."

"Do you even know anything about baking?" Darcy asked, ignoring Jane's glare in her direction.

Bucky did a double take, as if only just noticing that they were not alone. Before Darcy, he shrunk, keeping his eyes firmly on Jane as he answered. "I helped my mom in the kitchen a few times when I was a kid. I could do the mixing."

"That would be fine," Jane said, glaring once more at Darcy when the latter started to snort.

Jane picked up her cookbook, flipping past the inscription from her Aunt Judy ('Happy Birthday, Janie! Remember: the way to every man's heart is through his stomach.'), to the dessert section. The recipe she had chosen was the simplest in the book, but the picture depicted a delectable looking single layer cake with pink and green frosting. If Jane could just get herself together and do this right, Bucky would have something delicious to eat on his special day.

In a brand new bowl, Jane repeated the first three steps, adding an extra half cup of milk to hopefully avert the problems of her first batch. She didn't need another mess to clean up. Leaving Bucky to stir it up, Jane turned on the oven, double checking the book for heating instructions.

"Okay, I think the hard part is over," she said out loud to herself, "now we just have to bake it and then put on the frosting."

"I could help with that, too."

He looked so eager to help. Standing at attention with a ghost of a smile and eyes so big and expressive. Darcy's puppy analogy made a lot more sense when he was like this.

"That would be great, Sergeant," Jane said.

Bucky fidgeted. "You know, you can call me Bucky."

"Oh, I just-"

A thud cut Jane off, as she absently swept her arm off the counter and took the cookbook with her. It flipped back to the cover when it hit the floor, smack between Jane and Bucky's feet. Sighing at her clumsiness, Jane knelt to pick up the book. Bucky's form shifted at the top of her vision, and she never saw his legs or feet like she should have. He was bending over, muttering about getting it himself as he went.

Somehow, they avoided colliding heads, and Jane's heart sped up for a split second at the thought that their fingers might touch. Boy, would that ever be a cliche. That was the kind of thing Jane rolled her eyes at in romance movies.

But that didn't happen either. Bucky did beat her to grabbing the book, and Jane would owe him her thanks even though she'd been ready to do it herself. She started to stand, moving so fast that she met his gaze for once.

Then something else met.

It was only the slightest touch, just the barest brush of Jane's lips on his as she stood up. She froze in place. They both did. Darcy might have, too. She had a perfect view from where she was sitting, but whether she saw it or not, was in shock or not, Jane never would have noticed. She didn't even care that the oven was on and she'd burn herself if she backed up one inch.

Bucky was no better. His mouth had fallen open, his lips were twitching, and they very plump now that Jane thought about it. He stared at her mouth, eyes clouding over. A funny sound was coming from him, or maybe it was coming from Jane. Maybe it was both of them.

"I uh..." he swallowed. "I'm sorry."

Jane furrowed brow. "What for?"

He gave a rueful smile. "I used to be a better kisser."

Silence.

Jane laughed under her breath as the moment passed, covering her mouth to stifle her giggles. Bucky gave a chuckle of his own, easing the tension between them all the more. Jane could've thanked him for that alone, but then he stopped, and he wore the most peculiar look.

"Someday, I'll show you," he said, and he was smirking. That was the look. It was something Jane had never seen from him. He'd always been quiet before this, timid even. She wondered if she was getting a glimpse of the real Bucky Barnes for the first time.

They worked together when the cake was done on applying the frosting. They used blue instead of green, a color Bucky wasn't so fond of. Every now and then, they'd catch each other's eye, and Bucky would wink, and Jane would blush.

And she knew Darcy would never let her hear the end of it.


	6. A Funny Story

**A/N:** **This was also not a request, just something based on a prompt I found on tumblr. Sadly, it seems the only way I can get new material for this ship is to request it from others or write it myself.**

 **Oh well, here's a story where Bucky is half-naked. :D**

* * *

It was the screech of the fire alarm that ruined Jane's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, as she woke up at her work desk in her cramped, ten by ten third floor apartment at three in the morning. She shook off the remnants of the dream and grabbed her jacket, throwing it over her shoulders as she swerved around a pile of books she'd forgotten to take off the floor. That put her right in the path of her dirty laundry bin, and only the fortunate placing of her end table kept her from landing flat on her face.

She got out the door just as the alarm went off a second time. The sky was pitch black outside, and her only source of light came from a desk lamp that was in dire need of a lightbulb change. She fiddled around for the doorknob with her nose in the air, checking for any hint of smoke or ash in the air. If this was just another routine test, there would be hell to pay.

Out in the hall, her neighbors looked no less thrilled than her to have been pulled out of a good night's sleep for what might've been just some drunk's idea of a prank. Darcy was nowhere to be found, meaning that Jane's next door neighbor was probably out with whatever guy she was dating this month. It was a real shame; she could've used someone to bitch and moan with while running down the stairs to the bottom floor in a tank top and shorts. Without her, Jane was stuck doing it alone in her head.

She was one of the last people out, which meant she should probably start using those gym membership vouchers that had been sitting at the bottom of her drawer for six months. Stooping over to catch her breath, she saw the shadow of a person descend over her.

"Rough night, huh?"

"To put it lightly, yes," Jane said. She waited for her heart to stop beating in her ears, then straightened up and faced the man standing at her back.

She recognized him instantly. He had moved onto her floor about a month ago, into the much bigger and nicer apartment she and Darcy used to imagine pooling their money together to rent. She'd seen him a few times since then, but she'd never gotten his name, mostly because she'd always had a problem with talking to hot men. She would inevitably make a fool out of herself, either by putting her foot in her mouth or walking into something while trying pathetically to flirt. To have the current object of her affections right in front of her, wearing nothing but a pair of silky boxer shorts… well that was so far out of her comfort zone that she was bound to fall off a cliff.

He didn't seem to realize that he was just in his underwear, or if he did, he didn't care. Jane was hardly the only one to notice either. He had chosen to stand under the only street lamp still turned on at this time, the yellow light shining down on his muscular arms as he crossed them over a huge chest and defined abs for all the women of the apartment complex to see (and ogle). Jane's eyes traced over the bulging of his biceps, unaware she was even doing it until she heard a chuckle from him.

"Really sucks getting pulled out of your bed and not having time to change, right?"

His eyes swept over her. Jane swallowed and pulled her small tank top over a thin line of exposed midriff. She stepped back into the blackness, just in case her face was as hot as she felt.

"W-well, it happens," she said. "I'm sure we won't be out here too long. I-it was probably just some kids messing around."

He hummed in agreement, shrugging his shoulders. His very nice and muscular shoulders.

"I guess as long as we're stuck out here, might as well make the most of it." He uncrossed his arms. His muscles rippled as he held a hand out to her. "I'm Bucky. Nice to meet you."

Jane shook it after a moment of awkwardly staring.

"Nice to meet you, too," Jane said. She thought for a moment that she'd forgotten something, only for it to come to her some very slow seconds later. "Oh, and I'm Jane."

"Jane," he said with a grin. "Been meaning to introduce myself for a while, but you always seem so busy. That girl in 318 says you're a physicist, is that right?"

"Astrophysicist," Jane said. It had become second nature to correct anyone who didn't seem to know that there was more than one kind of physics out there. "And I'm really not one yet. I mean, I'm still working on my doctorate. Should get it soon, but… you know, these things take time."

"And I bet getting dragged out of bed to stand in the street in below zero temperatures doesn't help."

He said it without a hint of bitterness, like this whole thing was a big joke to him. Hell, maybe it was, and he came outside like this on purpose, just to get people flustered.

"It's not so bad," Jane said, forcing a laugh. "Who knows? It could wind up being a funny story to tell our kids someday."

Bucky stared at her, blank faced at first, before a wry half smile stretched across his features. By then, the laughter had died in Jane's throat, as she realized exactly what she had just said.

"I- I just mean, you know, if one day either of us have kids… that are our own kids. I don't- I mean, I don't mean that I expect to have kids with you or anything. I was talking about individual children that we might have individually with someone if we ever got married. Married to other people, that is! I don't mean to say that _we'd_ get married. That would just be… silly…"

Jane could no longer speak, not when she just kept babbling like that and digging herself deeper. She couldn't look at him either. He just wouldn't stop smiling at her.

She tried looking down, but all that meant was that she had to stare at his abs. Bad idea.

She looked to the side, and there were his biceps. Also bad.

The landlord stepped outside to announce that the fireman had cleared the building. Everyone was free to go back inside now, and Bucky did so with a wink in Jane's direction.

"Next time, let's both agree to put on some shoes first."

 _'How about a shirt?'_ she thought, keeping her lips tightly closed just in case her big, fat trap decided to let something else utterly mortifying slip out.

"Stupid," she hissed out loud. "Stupid, stupid, stupid. Great first impression. He must think I'm the biggest fucking loser in the world now."

She kept beating herself up over it all the way back to her room.

* * *

 **A/N: The twist is that Bucky actually thought it was adorable, and he asked her out the very next day.**

 **And yes, it did become a funny story that they told their kids. ;)**


	7. Poker Face

**A/N: Requested by Sparky She-Demon.**

* * *

Bucky leaned over the round tabletop, staring down his nemesis for the evening.

"You sure you want to do this?" he asked. "You know I was in the army. I spent many long nights cheating my squad mates out of their cash."

"And getting cheated right back?" Jane asked. She folded her hands together on the table, looking a bit like a villain in one of those James Bond movies Steve was so fond of.

"If you're too scared to play against me, we don't have to do this," he said.

Jane's response was to slide the deck of cards to his side of the table.

"Just deal them up, big boy," she said. "Don't forget the rules. You lose a hand-"

"You lose your clothes. I know."

Bucky had the cards shuffled in record time. He looked down at his hand with a perfectly blank expression. Even as the Winter Soldier, he'd never managed to look more emotionless. Meanwhile, Jane's own poker face, while fairly good, was marred by her constantly glancing up over her cards to see if he was watching her.

Ah, tut tut, Jane. Making such a rookie mistake.

After a minute, Bucky laid out his cards with a wide grin.

"Full house," he said, ready to laugh as Jane scowled and threw down her cards. "We can stop now if you want, babe."

He grabbed his drink and took a long, relaxed sip, while Jane's expression hardened, and she put on a sickeningly sweet smile.

"No, that's okay, honey," she said, her voice like syrup. Then she gripped the front of her shirt and pulled it over her head in one fluid motion.

There was nothing on underneath.

Bucky choked. The liquid that had been halfway down his throat came out onto a napkin and part of the tablecloth. He hacked up a breath and slammed his hand on the table, thankful that it was the flesh one. The cards bounced around on the tabletop. Jane seemed completely unconcerned that she was fully nude from the waist up.

"You okay?" she asked. There was a twinkle of mischief in her eye. "We can stop now if you like."

Bucky glared at her, but the temptation to cast his eyes downward at her small but very lovely breasts was just too great, and he had to stop.

"You uh… you don't have a…" He motioned at his chest.

"Have a what?" she asked, blinking innocently. Then she nodded her head as she 'got it'. "Oh right, I don't wear bras on days when I stay in. Did I forget to tell you that?"

Oh, she was good. She was really good.

But using her feminine wiles to distract him was not going to help her win at poker. Not for long. She was going to need serious skills if she wanted even a prayer of beating him.

When she won the next hand, it didn't bother him. He shucked off his shoes just to mess with her and rested his sock covered feet on the chair next to hers. She dealt the cards this time, and his hand looked incredibly promising…

…which made him rather surprised when she easily defeated him for the second time in a row.

And then a third time.

And a fourth time.

After the fifth time, when he was down to nothing but his boxer briefs, Bucky threw his cards in the air with a shout.

"Jesus Christ, how are you beating me? There is no way you're this good at poker!"

"Oh no?" said the shirtless, braless, but otherwise fully dressed Jane. "Tell that to my old roommate who used to be a blackjack dealer, my long nights spent in the observatory playing cards to pass the time, and my various accomplishments in science and _math_ , honey."

Never before had he seen such a look of smug satisfaction on anyone's face. Jane leaned back with her hands behind her head, her chest jutting out in such a way that Bucky's intense frustration boiled over and found its way out of him in another form entirely.

Bucky placed both hands on the table, casually throwing it into the wall where it broke in half right down the middle. Cards rained down on them like confetti as Bucky grabbed Jane's arms and pulled her up.

"Game over," he said huskily, and then he crushed his lips to hers.


	8. Random Acts of Kindness

**A/N: Requested by Notashamed. This might not be exactly what you had in mind, but I hope you enjoy it regardless.**

* * *

Bucky Barnes moved into Avengers Tower a week and a half after Jane did.

That was, of course, a very rough estimate. It wasn't as if Jane was keeping track. Of course she wasn't. That would just be weird and obsessive of her.

She didn't even see him arrive, only heard about it later from Darcy, who gushed over the super hot new guy while refilling Jane's coffee mug, and just so happened to mention his 'scary awesome metal arm' in between describing the way his ass looked in his jeans. After that, it had taken all the will in Jane's body not to shove Darcy into the nearest seat and grill her for every detail. The questions that would be asked, and all that she would have to admit to Darcy (and in many ways to herself) were all that kept her butt in the seat and her mouth shut.

If she did run into Bucky Barnes- and the odds of that happening anytime outside of a state of emergency were lower than low- it would not be the first time they had met. That had been three months ago, on a routine shopping trip gone wrong thanks to who else but HYDRA.

(It was always HYDRA these days.)

It was only the third time in the past few years that Jane had found herself in a life or death situation, but it was by far the scariest. One would think that after being host to an ancient alien power and then helping to avert a full scale invasion, staring down a gun would be a piece of cake. Yet when the man in combat gear raised a weapon in Jane's direction, she was no braver or more dignified in the face of certain death than any of the people around her. This was not some 'fantasy come to life' that she could separate herself from like all the rest had been, this was something that she always knew could happen any day of the week, and now, it was going to happen to her.

The man in black with the silvery arm had come out of nowhere. Appearing behind the HYDRA goon's shoulder, he had the weapon out of his hands in under a second. The next thing Jane knew, her ears were ringing from the blast of a gunshot, and the goon was on the ground, half his head missing. Her savior spared not but a moment to make sure she was unharmed, and then he was back in the fray, as graceful and deadly as a wild jungle cat.

Strange how in the middle of such a chaotic day in which she came inches away from losing her head and her life, the thing she would remember most was how blue his eyes were. They were simply captivating.

So now they were living under the same roof. Bucky Barnes, the man who saved Jane's life and didn't stick around long enough for her to thank him, was three floors above her. Any time of day, she could walk onto one of the elevators and find him standing there, alone or with company. Jane wasn't sure which would be worse.

As it was, she rarely left her lab anymore unless for one of three things:

1\. Her biological needs kicked in and demanded that she get food and/or sleep.

2\. Tony needed her for some urgent matter that required several brilliant scientific minds to ponder.

3\. Darcy dragged her off to a club somewhere for girl's night out.

Today, it was the third, though the first did come into play once they got to the lobby and Jane had a sudden craving for a sandwich.

"Okay," Darcy said, reluctantly letting go of Jane's arm, "but don't think you can sneak off back to the lab when I'm not looking, because I have an app that let's me track every security feed in this whole tower."

"Tony actually let you have something like that?" Jane asked.

"Of course not. Pepper did."

"Ah."

Jane weeded through the crowded food court, towards the Subway outlet in the far corner. She had been lucky enough to get there when the line was shorter than usual. Only three people were ahead of her, and as Jane waited patiently for them to place their orders, only one or two got in line behind her. A flash of something shiny in the corner of her eye made Jane turn her head without thinking.

There was a man at the very back of the line. Tall and broad, he wore a baggy brown jacket and a baseball cap over longish hair, and he was desperately trying to pull his sleeve over a naked wrist that was very clearly not human.

"Excuse me, Ma'am? You're holding up the line."

Jane started at the droning voice of the acne ridden teenager manning the register. Shooting him a look of apology, Jane stepped forward and rattled off her order. As the employee assembled her sandwich, Jane couldn't help but glance back at Bucky Barnes. He had his hands in his pockets, like he'd given up on trying to hide himself any other way. His shoulders were hunched and his head was down. He lifted it just a little, and there were deep bags under his eyes. Jane's heart broke. Here was this strong, handsome man who had saved her life and probably many others in the last few months- surely way more than he'd been forced to take- looking like an abandoned puppy that some rotten kid had stomped into the dirt.

She handed her debit card to the cashier without a thought, still watching her once rescuer with a strange ache growing in her stomach.

"Do me a favor," she told the cashier, and then she pointed at Bucky. "That man there in the hat. I'd like to pay for his order, too."

The cashier blinked. "Do… you know what he's going to get?"

"It doesn't matter. Just put it on the ticket."

Jane walked a fair distance away, stopping next to a Japanese grill with a long line of customers blocking her from view. When it was Bucky's turn, Jane watched them make a very plain ham and cheese sandwich, probably way cheaper than the money she had given. She held her breath when he reached the register and started fishing for his wallet, only for the cashier to stop him. She saw his stance change. He stood upright, leaning in as the situation was explained to him. By now, the line for the Japanese place had thinned just enough that he could meet her gaze when the cashier pointed her out.

Not knowing what else to do, Jane gave a weak wave.

She stood her ground as he walked over to her, though a very big part of her demanded that she run. He stopped inches away from her, and his chest in a rather tight shirt took up her vision.

"Hi," he said awkwardly. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Just wanted to thank you for the sandwich. You didn't have to buy it for me…"

"I wanted to," Jane said. "Just think of it as my way of repaying you for saving my life."

Bucky furrowed his brow, opening his mouth to ask before his eyes widened and shone with recognition.

"You were at that grocery store," he said.

Jane smiled. Nodded. "Yeah, I was."

A family of four was packing up their things at the table closest to them. They were polite enough to throw out their own garbage, leaving a perfectly clean table just several steps away. Jane took a deep breath and swallowed back all feelings of doubt..

"Do you want to sit down?" She asked, motioning at the free table. "We could talk."

That was… probably the lamest way anyone had ever asked someone out. Jane would have bashed her head into a wall, expect Bucky didn't seem to mind. A smile spread across his face that was the first genuine look of happiness Jane had ever seen from him.

And damn if he didn't have the nicest smile.

"I've got time," he said. "So long as you do."

"Oh yeah, I-" Jane snatched the sandwich she'd just put down back up. "Crap, I forgot about Darcy!"

She spun all the way around-

And there was Darcy, leaning against a pillar, beaming like a proud parent.

"Hey, don't worry about it," she said. "If you can find a hot guy on your own, Jane, you don't need me."


	9. Losing Out

**A/N: Requested by Sparky She-Demon.**

* * *

"Well, look at what we have here!" Tony Stark wore a handsome three piece suit and carried a glass of champagne in one hand. He grabbed another from a passing waiter without turning his head. "Thirsty? I know this stuff's basically water to you, but it is the highest quality water this side of France. I'm not even supposed to be drinking any, but it's just one glass, so be a pal and don't tell Pepper, huh?"

Thor boomed a laugh and clapped Tony as gently as he could on the back. In spite of his efforts, Tony still stumbled forward.

"Your secret is safe with me, my friend. Thank you for inviting me to your gathering."

"Hey, it's not a party without a little thunder and lightning." Tony drank from his glass, emptying it in one swallow. "Just a fair warning: Jane's here, too."

Thor's smile fell. He felt a great stabbing in his chest like the freshly sharpened blade of a foe, and it was only by putting to use everything he had learned about proper courtly manner that he was able to fake a smile.

"Then I am glad that she will partake in tonight's festivities. She deserves it after all her years of hard work."

That had sounded better in his head. Out of his mouth, it might as well have been read from a script. Thor could see it in Tony's eyes how unconvincing he'd been. Luckily, even in this mildly drunken state, his friend had the good sense not to speak up.

"I just wanted to make sure you were prepared," he said, and then he leaned in close. "She's with her new guy."

The metaphorical blade in Thor's heart twisted.

"I… take it she is happy with him."

Tony looked as though he would rather do anything else in the world than answer that question.

"Not sure if I should lie and say she's utterly miserable and pines for you constantly…"

"Your consideration is appreciated," said Thor, "but I would rather the truth."

Tony wore a thoughtful expression, and then gaze moved left. He gestured behind Thor.

"See for yourself."

Jane was seated at a table not far from them, close enough that she could be seen clearly through the swarms of party guests, but far enough that she would not hear if someone was speaking of her. She wore a simple, elegant blue dress and light makeup that only accentuated her natural beauty. Her eyes were alight in a way Thor had always known them to be, but different somehow. Brighter. She bestowed her gaze upon a man in a black suit, with hair slicked back and a clean shaven face. His own blue eyes beheld only the woman before him, as he propped up his head on a metal fist that was the only indication that he was anything out of the ordinary.

It was the first time Thor had seen James Buchanan Barnes in person, though he had heard about him many times from Steve Rogers. At first, the Captain had spoken wistfully of his friend, the fallen brother in arms he had valued as though they were truly born from the same womb. Such was a feeling Thor could relate to on an almost painful level. Later on, after the travesty that ended SHIELD revealed his comrade to still be alive, Rogers' words became sadder, filled with regret and anger, but most of all, hope. He had spent the better part of a year afterward searching the globe for his friend. How he had found him, and how he had brought him back to his right mind, Thor had yet to find out. He would have to ask Rogers later. He would have to ask him quite a few things about Mr. Barnes.

Thor turned away as Barnes leaned in and pressed his forehead against Jane's. What would happen next was clear, and Thor would not be the one to spoil their moment by spying. He partook in several more drinks, and engaged Clint Barton in conversation for a time before Natasha Romanov pulled him away for a dance. Tony Stark had similarly been removed to the dance floor by his lover. They spun near Thor once or twice, too wrapped up in one another to notice or care. The love in their eyes as they gazed upon each other warmed him. He wished them the very best in their lives together; they would surely have a wonderful family.

He would want the same for all of the midgardians he was honored to call his friends. He glanced once more at Jane. He had intended not to linger, but Jane was alone now at her table, not a sign of her new lover to be found. Where on earth had he gotten off to?

"Hey, you're Thor, right?"

Thor nearly gasped in the face of James Buchanan Barnes. He was mere inches away on Thor's left side, his hands clasped behind his back and his shoulders straight. Up close, his suit was immaculate, but Thor would not be surprised to find that he had at least one weapon hidden on him. He stood cool, calm, and almost deathly silent following that first question.

Most incredible was the fact that Barnes had snuck up on him.

He, a Midgardian, had been able to take Thor himself by surprise.

"I am," Thor said slowly. "And you are James Buchanan Barnes. I've heard much about you."

"Yeah, same," said Barnes. He stepped forward. "Sorry if I'm bothering you, I just wanted to talk for a second."

"I have time," Thor said, and indeed he had all the time in the world to stand before the man who held Jane Foster's heart in his hands. While he had been made aware that such attitudes were considered outdated and, at worst, outright offensive on Midgard, he simply couldn't abide by Jane giving herself to a man unworthy of her. "It's an honor to meet you at last, James Buchanan Barnes."

"You don't have to use my full name like that," he said. "Just call me Bucky."

"Very well…" Thor said, rolling the odd designation around on his tongue. "Bucky."

Barnes winced. It was the first crack in his armor Thor had seen, and it vanished just as quickly as it came. Once more, he stood with the countenance of a powerful warrior.

"Jane asked me to introduce myself," he said. "I know you guys used to be an item, but she still thinks of you as a friend, so I guess she wants us to try and get along."

He held out a hand for Thor to shake, never once breaking eye contact. Thor noted that the proffered hand was not the metal one, but his grip was as strong as if it was. That was good. Even if he couldn't match an Asgardian in brute strength, it was clear that he would be a far tougher opponent than most of his kind.

"I'm sure we will have no trouble finding common ground," Thor said. "I'm certain that any man Jane Foster has chosen for herself would be someone I could call a friend."

He left it there, trusting that Barnes could read between the lines. Indeed, his eyes darkened and his stance became stronger. He was ready to fight if necessary. Thor had known far too many battles in his life not to know that look.

"Honestly, I don't always get why she'd want someone as broken down as me," Barnes said, his voice a mite softer than before. "Course, now that I've got her, I'm not letting her go for anything."

He grinned at Thor, showing his teeth. Then he bade him farewell and returned to Jane's side, sliding in next to her and pulling her into his embrace. She responded in kind, wrapping her arms around his neck as he all but pulled her into his lap. They fit together well, like it had been decided by the fates themselves. He would have to ask them about it when he found the time.

Her chin on Barnes' shoulder, Jane's eyes met his by chance, and she gave him a wave that Thor answered with a smile and a nod. He left it there, content in the knowledge that Jane Foster was happy and in the arms of a good man.


	10. Just an Average Day

**A/N:** **I wasn't going to do any prompt fills for a while, but then my dear friend Luna-Orlha had to go and give me this idea.**

* * *

Bucky surveyed the scene before him.

The worst of the damage to Jane's lab was focused around the back left corner. The melted remains of her prototype bifrost smoldered there in a shapeless black husk. It gave off a thick, smoky odor strong enough to carry fifty feet and smack him in the face the second he walked in. After a short coughing fit, Bucky continued to assess the area. Jane had cleared all but two of her computer modules as still functioning, but without working electrical outlets, that didn't mean much. Beyond the technical failures was a wall covered in scratch marks, blue colored blue staining the floor and, of course, the enormous corpse of… whatever that thing was that got through her portal and wrecked the place. Bucky kicked its foot a few times, guns at the ready. It was well and truly dead by all appearances, but he wasn't taking chances.

"You sure its not just playing possum?" he asked.

Jane rolled her eyes, and Bucky wanted to scream because _she did not have any fucking right to scoff at him after this._

"James, it has a hole in its stomach that I could stand in. It's dead."

Bucky studied it a while longer, appeased for the most part but unable to turn off that part of his brain that demanded he be sure.

"Fine," he said, holstering his guns. "Now, do you want to tell me what happened here?"

Jane fidgeted. She had her hands in her pockets and her shoulders hunched. It made her look even smaller than she was.

"Um… well, I was making some last minute adjustments to the formula for opening the portal."

"Okay," Bucky said.

"And everything was running smoothly on the simulator, so I wanted to do a live test."

"Right."

"I set everything up and activated the bridge."

"Right."

"And then there was a glitch in the program that messed with the coordinates and let the bilgesnipe in."

Jane finished with a smile and a flutter of her lashes. In the blink of an eye, she had gone from hiding behind her collar like a mouse to trying to look as adorable as possible. She might as well rub her head against his leg and purr while she was at it. Not that it would have helped her. She could twirl her hair and bat her eyes all day long until the cows came home, and he would still be throwing up his hands and falling back on a desk chair and cursing the Lord above for having made him some kind of magnet for reckless idiots.

"You know what? I'm not even shocked," he said, laughing. "Not even a little. I expect this from you now."

"Hey," Jane whined, puffing out her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, but you actually thought it was okay to open a trans-dimensional portal in the middle of your lab without telling anyone and without a backup plan in case something went wrong. If Thor and his friends hadn't been visiting, _you'd_ be the bloodstain on the floor right now. And the craziest part is that this is exactly like you."

"For your information, I _did_ have a backup plan," Jane snapped.

"And what was it?"

An awkward pause.

"…um, call Thor and his friends?"

He could barely form coherent sentences anymore. His shoulders shook and his stomach ached. It was a good think he already sat down or else he would have tripped over his own feet trying to move. He inhaled deeply until his lungs hurt more than his stomach and let it out. He did it two more times until it was all out of his system. Jane watched him, her arms crossed and a deep frown marring her features.

"Are you finished?" she asked.

"For now," he said. "At least until tomorrow when you manage to top yourself yet again."

"Well, maybe _you_ should give me a reason to stay in bed for once."

Bucky's eyes darkened. He stood, towering over Jane, backing her against the table.

"You challenging me?"

Jane grinned.

She didn't get out of bed until late evening the next day.


	11. Student Life

**A/N:** **This was inspired by my need to write something happy after seeing Civil War.**

 **I might post some more later today. Depends on how much cheering up I need.**

* * *

This building was huge!

It was the biggest building Jacob had ever seen, not that he'd seen a lot in the short six years he'd been alive. Before today, the biggest thing he'd ever seen was his mom's friend, Dr. Banner. He didn't think he would find any giant green superheroes at school, not that he'd be scared if he did. That would be the coolest thing ever. Way better than learning about math or getting eaten by the monster that lived in the boy's room (and that was definitely for real because Bobby Miskin's big brother was smart and he wouldn't lie about this).

Tugging at the straps of his backpack, Jacob looked up at his father.

"Are you guys sure about this?" he asked. "Maybe I should start first grade next year."

"You could do that, by then, all your friends will be in second grade," Bucky said, ruffling his son's hair. "Don't want that, do you?"

"No," Jacob said, "I'm just not sure I'm ready for school. I think this matter requires further research and discussion, and the gathering of sufficient data to come to a reasonable conclusion."

Bucky blinked several times. He glanced at his wife.

"What the hell are you teaching this kid?"

"Not how to curse, that's for sure," said Jane. She kneeled down to Jacob's level, meeting eyes that were identical to her own. "Honey, I know the first day of school can be scary. I was nervous on my first day, too."

Jacob's eyes widened. "But you don't get nervous, Mom."

Jane laughed. "Believe me, I do. But you know what? After a few days, I'd made some friends, and I started to do really well, and then I couldn't remember what I was scared of."

"Do you think I'll do well, too?"

Jane feigned a look of offence. "Of course! Are you doubting your own mother, young man?"

She tickled him under the neck, his most sensitive spot. Jacob burst into giggles and ran to hide behind Bucky's legs to escape her.

"You'll both be here to pick me up at the end of the day, right?"

"Sure, kid," said Bucky. "Your mom and I will be waiting right here. You don't have to worry about that."

"And I'll be safe if I have to go to the bathroom?"

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Jacob, for the thousandth time, that Miskin kid is a dirty rotten liar. There is no monster in the boy's room."

"But he said-"

"He also said he had a dragon living in his doghouse, and did he?"

"Only because Mom said lizards aren't dragons."

"Okay, come on, all children need to go to school now," Jane said, eyeing her husband. "All the little ones anyway."

Bucky gave her a look, which she happily returned. Jacob took that as his cue to run. He knew that whenever his parents got like this, they were just one step away from… _kissing_.

Blegh!

"We'll see you after school, son!" Bucky shouted as Jacob made his way onto the playground. "Be good for the teacher."

Jacob smiled and waved as his parents got back into the car and drove home.

"Was that your dad?" asked a chubby boy hanging off the monkey bars.

Jacob nodded, and the boy dropped down hard on the ground.

"I bet my dad could beat up your dad," he said, to which Jacob could say nothing at all.


	12. Lightweight

**A/N: Based on a prompt from ozhawk.**

* * *

Jane was drunk.

Like, _really_ drunk.

Like, super duper ultra mega drunk.

She knew she was, because she would never string the words super, duper, ultra, and mega together if she was even a tiny bit more sober.

So yeah, she was drunk.

She couldn't remember exactly why she'd started drinking. She was at a party of some kind. Darcy was there, and Tony was there. A bunch of other super people were there. Thor wasn't there, thank science for that.

Bucky Barnes was also there. In fact, he had taken it upon himself to pull Jane's third drink out of her hands after deciding—without even consulting her first, the ass—that she'd had enough. Jane didn't know what he thought he knew about 'enough', given that he had super duper ultra mega enhanced metabolism and couldn't even get drunk.

And there were those words again. In the same order, too. Maybe he was right after all.

"You got sexy eyes," Jane slurred as he carried her over his shoulder to a guest room.

"How does anyone get this drunk after two light beers?" he asked no one, shaking his head. It made his hair swish a little.

"You got sexy hair."

"Thanks. You've got a lot of sleep to catch up on, you know that? You're going to feel like shit when you wake up."

"Not if you stay with me," Jane said with a hiccup and a giggle. "You got a sexy mouth."

"Next time Darcy throws a party, I swear, I am flushing all the alcohol down the toilet."

"I bet you'd do it really sexily."

He stared at her. "I… do not know what to say to that."

"You got a sexy neck."

He brought her to a room with a huge bed. More than big enough for two. He dropped her in the center on a pile of fluffy pillows. Jane rolled around happily on the bed. This was the comfiest mattress she'd ever gotten to lay on.

"You going to be okay now?" he asked.

"I dunno," said Jane. "You should carry me around more, so I can keep looking at your sexy ass."

She let out full belly laughs at the look on his face. Times like this, it was hard to believe he'd been a ladies man in the forties. Sometimes, Jane could see it, like all the times they play flirted when she wasn't super duper… well, you know.

Then he'd get like this, and she'd swear he was a virgin who'd never so much as seen a woman before.

Maybe she should help him along.

"Come here!" She tugged at his arm, the metal one. He didn't budge, but just stared at her more.

"What are you doing?"

"Get in bed," she said. "We could mess around and stuff."

"I'm not doing that with a drunken girl."

"Awwww… why not?"

"Because… no one should do that!"

"Don't get preachy with me Mr. Sexy Abs. It's killing the mood."

"There isn't a mood to kill, doll. Get some rest."

Then he started to leave! He was _walking away!_

And boy did he ever have sexy thighs… but that wasn't the issue here.

"Hi-yah!" Jane sprung up like a cat (a drunk cat, but a cat nonetheless), wrapping her arms around Bucky's legs. He lost his balance, falling backwards onto the bed, and Jane gave him no room to escape as she crawled on top of him. "Victory goes to me! You and your sexy shoulders are all mine! Hahaha!"

"…so I'm guessing you're the nutty kind of drunk," said Bucky.

"You got a sexy nose."

Jane would have happily continued to list every sexy body part Bucky possessed (the short version is all of them), but that was the moment when the booze finally caught up to her, and the world went dark. Her head flopped onto Bucky's (sexy) chest and she let out soft, peaceful snores. Her whole body had wound itself around his, pinning him in place. Admittedly, it would be child's play for him to untangle himself. He could do it all without even waking her if he was careful.

"I should get up now," he said to himself, but then she moved a little in her sleep, nestling into him with a happy sigh and a smile on her pretty face.

Maybe he could stay a while yet.


	13. Puppy Love

**A/N: Requested by Omnicat.**

* * *

"Hey, Jane, you here?"

"In my office."

Jane felt around the messy work desk for her screwdriver. It was hard to find anything in this pile of metal now that she'd torn the telescope apart. She her heavy footsteps, followed by the door creaking open, but she didn't look up until Bucky's Henley covered stomach filled her vision. The screwdriver was placed into her hand.

"What are you doing?"

Jane shrugged. "Just tinkering with my old telescope. I was bored."

"Doll, you have the weirdest hobbies."

"And yet you still married me. So who's the weird one?"

He moved away abruptly, and Jane had to bite back a smile at the thought of him ripping her out of that chair and ravishing her on the table, as was typically the case whenever she got cheeky with him.

A quivering ball of bright gold fluff was held out before here instead.

"I found this little guy limping down the street," Bucky said. "Thought maybe you could help him?"

A head poked out of the furry mass. The puppy sniffed the air and stared up at Jane with wide, black eyes. It let out a whimper and nuzzled Bucky's palm. Jane would be lying if she said it wasn't adorable as hell.

"I'm not a vet, James," she said.

"But he's hurt."

"Astrophysicists don't help people," she said, then backtracked. "I mean, we do. We help by providing a better understanding of the universe. That has nothing to do with medicine."

"Yeah, but you took nursing classes," Bucky countered. "You must of picked up a thing or two."

"I picked up plenty," said Jane. "Plenty about treating _humans_. There's nothing I can do for an animal."

The puppy whimpered, louder this time, as if imploring Jane for help himself (herself?). Bucky held it up higher, putting it's tiny doggy face right between Jane's eyes. He seemed to know that it would work; that even Jane, a self-proclaimed cat person, would be weak against a sad faced puppy in need.

"I've got a friend in the area," Jane said, reaching for her phone. "He's a veterinary assistant. I'll ask him to get us an appointment."

Bucky grinned and pressed a kiss to her temple. "Thanks, babe. You're the best."

"You bet I am." Jane tapped her foot as she waited for her friend to pick up. "Do you have a name for him yet?"

Bucky ceased patting the puppy's matted fur and hummed.

"Hadn't thought about it," he said. "Um… if it's a boy, James Jr. and if it's a girl, Jane Jr. How's that?"

Jane stared at him for a long time, then shook her head.

"When we have kids, _I'm_ naming them."


	14. Newborn

**A/N: So a few people wanted to see Jane telling Bucky that she's pregnant, but I already have something special planned for that, so here is Jane having the baby instead.**

 **Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

The enemy had them surrounded. Every which way Steve looked, more of them were streaming in. They were all but identical in their dark grey body armor and gas masks. Though some were bigger than others, they all carried themselves the same way: with intent to kill. Their orders had been to take no one alive, civilian or Avenger.

Luckily, the former had long since been evacuated. No deaths or injuries had been reported, beyond a few nervous breakdowns from those unfortunate enough to witness the armed men storming the streets. There was no one left to get caught in the crossfire, and for that, at least, Steve could breathe easy.

As the first wave of soldiers arrived, Steve counted at least thirty within his line of sight. Bucky could probably gauge the numbers better. Steve turned to him, his friend having put on his war face and aimed to shoot the man closest to them.

"How do you want to play it?" he asked.

Steve shrugged. "Honestly, I didn't expect so many of them."

"You're telling me you don't have a plan?"

"I do have a plan," Steve said flatly. "Run and keep running. Anyone tries to stop you-"

"Bash their heads in," Bucky supplied, rolling his eyes. "Jesus, Steve, how did you even make it this long? You can't charge into enemy fire without some idea of what you're doing beyond 'beat everyone with my shield.'"

"It's worked for me so far," Steve quipped, fighting not to smile at Bucky's bemused expression.

"Well, we're not going to get out of this by just blowing the place to kingdom come. We have to be smarter than that."

Their earpieces buzzed, making them both snap to attention.

"Natasha, what's happening on your end?" Steve asked, pressing his finger into the comm.

The voice that came on, while female, was not Natasha's.

"Hey guys, it's Darcy. Sorry to interrupt your big badass fight scene, but I thought Bucky should know that we're at the hospital with Jane right now. She's in labor."

Five seconds later, the entire facility went up in flames and Bucky Barnes ran screaming through the wreckage, kicking half-dead mooks out of his way, with Steve just barely keeping up.

"Bucky!" Steve shouted, nearly tripping over a machine gun one of the men had dropped. "Slow down, wouldja?"

"I CAN'T SLOW DOWN," Bucky screamed. "JANE IS HAVING THE BABY. MY WIFE IS HAVING A BABY AND I NEED TO BE THERE NOW!"

He all but threw Steve into the passenger side of the helicopter. Jumping into the pilot's seat, Bucky got them airborne as fast as he could. Soon, they were over a hundred miles in the air as Steve stared down at the burning rubble.

"How did you even do that?" he asked.

"Hospital, where's the hospital? Where is it?"

They found it in record time. Bucky brought them down to thirty feet over the helicopter pad on the roof, then decided this was too slow for him and jumped out, leaving Steve to take care of the landing. He got out in time for Bucky to stop trying to jimmy the lock and just rip the metal door off its hinges. Steve followed him down ten flights of stairs to the maternity floor.

"Buck, would you calm down? Jane is fine. You'll get there!"

Bucky broke down a second door and started running through the maternity ward. Doctors and nurses alike tried and failed to run before they got bowled over by a distressed super soldier. Steve had to stop a hundred time to apologise for Bucky and check that no one had been hurt.

The waiting room was already packed with friends and comrades alike, most of whom held their breath as Bucky flew right past Darcy and grabbed the next closest person by the shoulders.

"Where's Jane? Is she all right?" he demanded of Bruce, shaking him hard enough that his head flopped from side to side. "What's going on? Did she have the baby? Are they okay? Did anything happen? TALK TO ME GODDAMMIT!"

Steve ripped Bucky away and placed himself between him and their friends. Bucky tried for all of a minute to fight back before the adrenaline rush finally broke.

"Jane is still in labor last we heard," said Bruce. "We told the nurse you were on your way. She's in room 207 just down the hall to the left, but maybe you should take a minute to compose yourself before you-"

Bucky was already running. He was slowed down by Steve's feet scraping the floor as he was dragged along.

"Would you move faster?" Bucky snapped.

"Why am I coming?" asked Steve.

"Because you're the godfather. You have to be there."

"But I-"

"SHUT UP AND MOVE!"

Bucky burst through the double doors to find Jane propped up in bed, her brow drenched in sweat as the nurse dabbed water on her forehead. As soon as she saw Bucky, she let out a cry of relief.

"I thought you wouldn't make it," she said.

Bucky dropped Steve and made it to Jane's side in two long strides.

"Janie, you know I wouldn't miss this for the world."

He pulled Jane into a very long and thorough kiss that seemed a bit inappropriate for a birthing room. The nurse loudly cleared her throat.

"Not to interrupt, sir, but we need to check your wife's vitals."

Bucky broke away, his cheeks flaming. The nurse had Jane lay back as she examined all the monitors. One started beeping, and then Jane let out a groan.

"Okay, we've got another contraction coming," said the nurse.

Bucky took Jane by the hand, barely reacting as she squeezed it with all her strength.

"James…" she ground out as the pain receded and the nurse left to retrieve the doctor. "I… am never… getting in the hot tub with you again. Never."

"Okay, babe, I understand," Bucky said.

Steve, having taken a seat on the opposite side of Jane's bed, smiled, and Bucky ached to wipe off his face.

"Hot tub, huh?"

"You're just jealous because I get laid and you don't."

"James, shut your mouth or you won't be getting laid either."

Another contraction hit just as the doctor came. Jane screamed, and Bucky actually felt a shot of pain this time as she crushed his fingers. Maybe he should have given her his other hand to hold.

"Boy, this little guy really wants to come out," the doctor joked. "He's a strong one."

If that was supposed to be funny, Bucky wasn't laughing. In fact, that was everything he'd been afraid of since the day he found out that Jane was pregnant.

"Okay," the doctor said, grabbing a fresh pair of gloves. "Let's have a baby."

Twenty minutes went by. The slowest and most terrifying of Bucky's life. As bad as it was for him, he couldn't begin to imagine what Jane was going through. By the time their son came screaming into the world, he felt like he was going to faint. He could fight a hundred battles without breaking a sweat, but this was on a whole other level.

Their baby was first taken away to be cleaned up. Steve had to hold Bucky back from going after them. Instead, he stayed with Jane, showering her with kisses and telling her over and over again how great she'd done.

"I love you, baby," he said for the millionth time. "I love you so much."

"I love you, too," said Jane through her tears. "And I was just kidding about the hot tub. I want to spend the whole night with you as soon as possible."

The nurse came back, their cleaned and bundled baby wrapped in her arms. She handed him off to Jane. The new mother bounced him gently, cooing at his little face, welcoming the newest member of their family into the world.

"Hi Jacob," she said. She had long since picked out a name for him. "Hi baby. I'm your mommy. And this is your daddy."

She moved so that Bucky could get a better look. The baby was no longer crying and appeared to be asleep, but given that he couldn't open his eyes yet, it was hard to say for sure. Bucky reached out, then stopped. He had accidentally used the metal hand.

The baby started fussing, letting out a whimper as his hands failed. One caught onto Bucky's thumb, and he froze. The hand was so small that it couldn't have wrapped around his pinky, let alone his thumb. He held on tight, making more baby noises that had a vaguely contented sound to them. Bucky couldn't feel in that part of the arm, but just the sight of his son's tiny fingers touching the cold metal without fear…

Well, Steve and anyone else could rib him all they wanted for crying. Bucky felt no shame in it.

"Hi kid," he whispered. "I'm your daddy… and I'm never gonna let anything happen to you or your mother."

He gently kissed the baby's forehead, then Jane's lips one more time before they lapsed into a comfortable silence. Steve sat back and watched them, not wanting to spoil the moment for anything. This was all that his best friend deserved and more.

The doors opened a crack as Tony poked his head inside.

"Okay, so does anyone want to tell me about the building that got destroyed or the stolen helicopter or the doors that were ripped apart?"

Steve gave him a hard look. Tony sighed.

"Fine, fine. We'll talk about it later." He walked away, calling for Pepper to grab his checkbook.

* * *

 **A/N: I don't really like ending it there, but I couldn't think of a better final line, so there you go.**


	15. Bad Girl

**A/N:** **Based on a request by otptilltheend, and this is where the Explicit rating finally comes into play.**

 **There is sex in this one, guys. Fair warning.**

* * *

She'd been waiting a long time for this. The opportunity had presented itself at long last, right in the middle of a crowded bar where Darcy was celebrating getting into Grad school. She had a single shot of liquid courage in her system, and there was Bucky Barnes, all alone in the corner, nursing a beer he could never feel the effect of.

"Having fun?" she asked, sidling up next to him.

It was the first time she'd approached him all night. The last time he'd seen her, she was greased up under a machine that was malfunctioning. She'd been wearing dirty jeans and a long sleeved shirt. Her hair was matted and oily. It was to her pleasure then, when he turned to look at her, with her newly washed hair and in the tight skirt and top she had sworn she;d never wear, and immediately lost his breath.

"I uh... um..." he coughed and downed the beer, He didn't even wince at the taste. "I'm doing okay."

"Want to get out of here and go somewhere quiet?"

"I thought you guys came in your car tonight," he said, so innocently that Jane could almost believe he was serious. "You weren't thinking of leaving Darcy here, were you?"

"There are quiet places right here," Jane reminded him. She nodded at the dingy hallway leading to rooms the bartender leased out by the hour.

His eyes widened, and darkened just a little, in that way Jane had been seeing for weeks now every time their gazes met.

"That's.. forward of you," he said.

Jane grinned. "Is that a bad thing?"

She moved around him, her fingers 'accidentally' brushing his thigh. His breath hitched. He grit his teeth and that quick little snarl sent shivers down Jane's spine. It was this sort of them that had endeared him to her from the start. Those little hints that he could give Jane everything she had never gotten from the other men in her life.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," he said tightly.

"If you don't want to, all you have to do is say so."

He wanted to. It was written all over his face. He'd been wanting to for ages, long before tonight. The blue of his eyes was like a bottomless pool as his flesh hand brushed her arm.

"I could hurt you," he whispered.

"You won't." Jane moved away from his human hand and ran her fingers along the metal one. "I trust you... now come on, or do I have to dare you?"

She walked towards the back room, and her wandering hands reached for one more spot. He gasped as she squeezed him lightly, and maybe it was just the dance music getting more robotic and loud, but she was sure that gasp became a growl just before his shadow loomed over her.

By the time they reached an empty room, Jane was no longer in the lead. She allowed Bucky to drag her inside and close the door by pressing her up against it. Kissing him was like everything she had ever dreamed and more. His lips were as soft as they looked, though they pressed against her so hard that it was almost punishing, like he wanted to make her pay for tempting him.

She landed on the bed and hastened to remove her top while Bucky made quick work of her skirt and panties. She'd never cared for that pair anyway as they fell to the creaking floor in a pitiful heap of destroyed lace. Bucky undid his pants and dragged them down with his underwear. Jane whistled, but it wasn't enough for her. Impressive a sight as he was, she wanted more.

"Off," she snapped, pulling at his shirt. "Take it off."

Bucky chuckled. "Someone's impatient."

"Shut up and take your shirt off."

"Yes Ma'am," he said as he pulled it off.

Holy God in heaven, he was a work of art. It occurred to her that this was the first time she had ever seen his naked upper body. Before now, the most she'd gotten were some tight sleeveless shirts for working out or carrying heavy things that Jane couldn't lift herself. From now on, she was thinking she'd have to implement a 'no shirts in the lab' rule when it came to Bucky.

"Satisfied?" he asked.

Jane jumped up into his arms, Her tongue licked a long line between his pectorals and moved on to the thick scarring over the base of his metal arm. He clung to her, so tightly that Jane almost couldn't breathe, but she didn't think of asking him to let up. If she did that, he might get nervous and draw back into himself. He might not give her everything she wanted when he took her.

"You are the sexiest man I have ever seen," she said.

"Didn't you used to date Thor?"

"Yup," Jane said, kissing along his shoulder. "And you are the sexiest man I have ever seen."

She licked a line across his stubbled cheek, the tiny coarse hair raking over her tongue as she moved from his cheek to his mouth. He took control of the kiss. Jane moaned and melted into his powerful embrace. He took her by the wrists, and might not have even known he was doing it. His eyes were glazed over, but no less intense. Jane felt him shift as he nudged at her legs. Jane brought them up around his waist. He rubbed against her clit and she writhed beneath him. A tiny smirk lit up his features. He mumbled something gruff and not in English. Whatever it was, it sounded dirty as hell.

"Please, James," she gasped. She could feel him so close to where she needed him. So close. If he just moved a little... "Please."

"You gonna scream for me?" He pressed more of his weight into her. The gears in his arm whirred and the plates shifted. "I wanna hear you scream, doll. The louder you scream the harder I fuck you."

She could've gotten off on the low and deep quality of his voice alone. What he was actually saying just added fuel to the fire. She was ready to do anything and everything he asked, just so long as he moved that little bit to be inside of her.

He did.

And Jane _screamed_.

It wasn't even a conscious choice to give him what he wanted. He was just so big, and as her body adjusted, he felt _so good_. He moved slowly at first just to make sure she was all right, and then he made good on his word. He growl and groaned as he fucked her into the mattress. His fingers on her wrists dug in, sending shockwaves of pain down to her elbows. Jane screamed and howled and made herself hoarse, but all the pain in the world couldn't take away from the pleasure he was giving her.

It went on forever. His stamina was through the roof, so Jane really shouldn't have been surprised when he got her through not one but two orgasms in a row, and only then screwed his eyes shut and grunted as he came. He rolled over so not to fall on her. He took her with him, spooning her and caressing her hot skin as they basked in the afterglow.

"Your arms," he said.

Jane furrowed her brow. She checked her wrists to find the source of his distress. Finger shaped purple splotches were already making themselves known, patterned like a bracelet wrapped around delicate skin. She rolled around to face him. Bucky kissed each and every mark as if that would erase them.

As if Jane would even want that.

"It's okay," she said. "You can leave a bruise or two."

"I didn't want to hurt you..."

"And you didn't." Jane snuggled into his chest, hoping that her closeness and open show of affection would assuage him. "Trust me, James, you did not do anything tonight that I haven't been wanting a man to do to me for the longest time."

He looked unsure, but more relaxed. His hand found her head and he rested it there, warm and gentle. So unlike the savage beast he'd been a moment ago. Jane could honestly say she liked this Bucky Barnes just as much as she liked that one.

"So I'm guessing you're not after a one night stand?" he asked hopefully.

"Are you?"

He scoffed. "I do not jump into bed with just anyone, thank you."

"Glad to hear it." She kissed his chest, the smooth hard planes felt so wonderful against her skin. She could definitely get used to this.

"So does this mean that when I tell you it's too dangerous to test your equipment on the roof, you'll listen?"

"Nope," Jane bluntly stated. "It just means that when I do, you have license to punish me afterwards."

He raised an eyebrow, and Jane felt something brush her thigh that was rather telling about his current state of mind.

"Just for that, you're getting punished right now," he said.

This was the best night of Jane Foster's life.


	16. Not Always Right

**A/N: Based on this prompt from projectmeetcute on tumblr: 'I'm on the verge of tears because of a rude customer and you step in and stand up for me'**

* * *

If Jane was to weigh the pros and cons of working at the local Barnes and Noble, she'd find the results skewed pretty far on the side of the pros. She got to spend her summer vacation getting paid to do everything she would have spent her free time doing anyway. She got a twenty percent discount on all merchandise and at the cafe. On slow days, she could sit behind the counter enjoying a physics text or a mystery novel, whatever she happened to be reading at the time. The store was right outside the largest shopping mall in the county, so on her breaks, she could take a walk to the food court and pick up one of her favorite Subway sandwiches for lunch. That employee discount meant that her Agatha Christie collection and her Mystery Science Theater 3000 collection were both almost complete. Most importantly, her wages meant she had just enough money to pay for her first year of college and maybe even eat more than once a day during the school year.

As for the cons... well, weekends weren't always fun. That was when the store was at it's most crowded, and Jane had to spend her whole shift ringing up customers and rushing back and forth to the supply room to check if a book someone wanted was in stock. It was also when all the assholes came out, attracted by the promise of air conditioning on a hot August afternoon and some new overpriced DVD just released. Jane had been working at the store for close to a month, and she'd had yet to deal with anything remotely like the horror stories her co-workers liked to trade. Before today, the worst she'd gotten was some eighty year old woman with thick bifocals and insufficient hearing aids who couldn't understand no matter how loud Jane yelled that all the books on birdwatching were upstairs and not in the music section.

Compared to what she was dealing with now, she'd take the deaf old lady any day of the week.

"Ma'am, I have checked and re-checked, but our policy only allows thirty days to return all purchased items, and it's been forty days since you bought this."

Jane spoke slowly and clearly as if addressing someone much younger than a forty something, frizzy haired woman in a loud green cardigan who wouldn't stop tapping her foot.

"So just because of some stupid technicality, you're not going to let me return this," she said. Her husband beside her nodded in agreement.

"It's not a technicality. This is something we learn right away when we take the job. If it was one day over the deadline, maybe I could've helped you, but-"

"If you could have helped me then, you should help me now," she snapped. "I've been a very loyal customer at this establishment for years. I've spent quite a bit of money supporting this place. Why, your own paycheck is funded by people like me, and yet you don't even have the decency to treat me with the same respect that I've treated you?"

Jane would've loved to laugh in her face, but that was the other thing she learned on her first day working: don't insult the customers.

"Ma'am, we respect and appreciate all of our customers. If you want, I can talk to my manager about maybe getting you a store credit-"

"I don't want any store credit. I want my money back!"

The woman's husband stepped forward. Jane gulped as she fought to stand her ground. Rationally, she knew this man couldn't be stupid enough to threaten her over a fifteen dollar book and in plain view of twenty people, but he was still over six feet tall and big as a house. No one could blame her for eyeing the panic button under the desk.

"Just give us the money back. It's only a dumb rule. You can break it."

"I really can't, sir," Jane said, her fingers turning white as she clenched her fists. "I could get in a lot of trouble with my boss if I did that."

"Not to mention, you guys are being rude as fuck."

The couple turned to face the man in line behind them. He looked a few years older than Jane, dressed in gym clothes and carrying a plastic shopping bag with a few books on martial arts techniques. He had his hands in his pockets and glared coldly at the two of them. Jane caught his eye for just a moment, and they softened right before the husband stepped in front of him.

"Why don't you mind your own business?" he snarled.

"I would have, if you two were acting like decent human beings," the new guy said, "but since you've decided to be complete assholes to a girl who's just doing her job, I felt like I should step in."

The woman gaped openly at him, as did Jane. He glanced at her a second time and winked. It occurred to Jane right about then that he was seriously hot. The kind of guy she would want to approach at the bar, but would never have the courage to.

"Look buddy, she's being unreasonable," the husband said. From the way he was standing, it looked like he was trying to use his greater size and girth to intimidate Jane's savior. "All we want is to return one measly book, and I have better things to do than stand around arguing with some retail worker who probably didn't even finish high school. I have an important job to get back to."

"Oh really?" said the man. "So do I. I work down at the gym teaching mixed martial arts students how to punch through cinderblock."

Jane couldn't see the husband's face, but his shoulders dropped, and she could imagine what was running through his head as he looked this guy up and down. He may have been shorter, but he was solidly built and carried himself with a strong countenance. Jane fully believed he could make good on the vague threat. The husband coughed and took his wife by the arm, leading her out of the store without another word. They'd left the bag with the book behind. Jane pulled it out and almost laughed. It was the final Hercule Poirot novel that she needed for her collection, still in perfect condition like that woman hadn't even bothered to read it.

Oh well, her loss.

"Thanks for the help," Jane said, storing the book behind the counter for later.

"My pleasure," said the man. He glanced at her name tag. "Jane. I'm Bucky. Nice to meet you."

Jane shook his hand, blushing at how warm and strong he felt.

"Is there anything I can help you find?"

Bucky smirked, and Jane's toes curled. "I already got the books I needed, but how about your number?"


	17. Always Right

**A/N: Requested by jeadamized, who wanted a second part to the last chapter.**

 **Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

"Eighty seven… eighty eight… eighty nine… ninety." Jane marked the number down on the clipboard. "And that's the end of that."

She stretched out her arms and gave a yawn. The clipboard slipped through her fingers down to the metal clamp. It swung as she relaxed and left the back room with a lighter step. Jane dropped the clipboard behind the information desk and went to the café where a free white chocolate mocha awaited her; a gift from the kitchen staff commemorating four years on the job.

"Times like this, I almost don't want to leave," Jane said. She took another sip and moaned at the heavenly taste. The white chocolate mocha with whipped cream on top was almost better than sex. "Maybe I can go to grad school next year."

"Oh please," said Darcy, the barista. "You're going to Culver. It's one of the best schools in the country. And you're going to be a world famous scientist someday. You'll probably have a Nobel Prize before you're forty."

"Not before I'm thirty?"

"Hey now, let's not get crazy with the fantasies here. Aim for what you can reach."

Jane discarded the empty cup an hour later while manning the checkout counter for the last time. She rang up one man buying a bargain priced joke book and a teenage girl with a stack of manga. That was the end of the line until one of the other five people browsing the aisles found something they wanted. Jane killed five minutes peoplewatching before taking out her most recent novel and turning to the marked page near the back. The final chapter of 'Annihilation' proved compelling enough that Jane never realized a customer was coming until he cast a shadow over her.

"Must be a good book," the deep male voice said.

Jane froze, schooling her expression into one of impassiveness. She straightened up like a good employee, smiling politely at the tall, broad man with a Barnes and Noble book bag twisted around his wrist.

"Can I help you find something, sir?"

He grinned tightly, like he was trying desperately not to laugh.

"I think I've got what I need." He held up a bag stuffed with books. There must have been at least ten in there, but he swung it around with one hand like it was lighter than air. "Looks like you've got what _you_ want: a nice, quiet store with no assholes to be found."

"You know my idea of a perfect night," Jane said. "So what are you up to these days?"

Bucky shrugged. "Same old thing. Working at the gym, training people, kicking everyone's ass. How about you?"

Jane fought not to roll her eyes.

"I got my BA, and now I'm going to graduate school."

"Nice."

"Today's my last day working here. I got a new job on campus so I don't have to worry about the commute."

"Awesome."

"And I'm getting married next week."

"Ah," he brightened right up and uncrossed his arms, suddenly interested. "Very nice. Tell me about the lucky guy."

Oh, was this how he was going to play it? Fine then, Jane could play.

"Eh, he's okay," she said. Bucky's face fell. "He likes to drink milk straight from the carton and he's always hogging the blankets at night. He likes to think he's this super cool guy, but he's really just a giant dork who cries at Pixar movies. He's lucky he's so sweet and handsome, or I wouldn't put up with it."

"So… you're saying he's handsome?"

Jane snickered. So did Bucky. He probably knew just how badly Jane wanted to smack him for that.

"If you must know," she said, leaning in close. "He is without a doubt the hottest guy I've ever met. He's got a body like a god and eyes I could get lost in. I love him so much even when he's pissing me off, and I can't wait to marry him."

"I bet he can't wait either," Bucky said.

The overhead announcer beeped in, reminding shoppers that only five minutes remained before closing time. That was Jane's cue to get her coat. Her now former co-workers had graciously offered to take care of closing up so she could go home early. Jane hugged them all goodbye one more time before slinging her bag over her shoulder and walking to the exit. Bucky was waiting for her.

"Can I walk you to your car?" He held out a hand like a footman before a carriage.

"You may," Jane said.

They were right outside the door when Bucky's hand around hers tightened, and Jane found herself flush against his chest with his hot mouth on hers. Jane sighed and melted into the kiss, not caring about any mothers who had to shoo their child away or how many co-workers spotted them through the windows. All of them loved Bucky to death anyway. With the way he and Jane had met, he was pretty much a hero among retail workers.

"For the record," Bucky whispered in her ear after softly kissing it, "I do _not_ drink milk from the carton."

"You most certainly do, you big liar."

"No I don't. You must have me confused with Steve."

"Steve is a perfect gentleman. Unlike some people I could mention."

"Steve is a shithead punk. He never even shares his lunch with me. And if you like him so much, why don't you marry _him_ instead?"

"That's a good idea. I wonder if it's too late to change it from a Barnes-Foster wedding to a Rogers-Foster wedding."

Bucky then proceeded to thoroughly express his displeasure with the idea until Jane's knees were weak and she was forced to concede defeat. She felt able to walk afterwards, but Bucky insisted on carrying her to the car.

"Practice," he said when she protested. "I'm gonna be carrying you over a threshold next week. I want to get it right."

"You're so full of shit," Jane giggled into his neck.

"I love you, too, baby."


	18. Hands to Yourself

**A/N: Requested by dristi5683**

 **Welcome to ship hell, new convert.**

* * *

Steve told him to wait in the lab while he looked for Dr. Foster. Bucky doesn't know much about this doctor, except that he's the foremost authority on astrophysics and Asgardians in particular. He's the first and, so far, the only human to travel across realms on their… whatever it is they travel on. Bucky hadn't been listening when Steve explained it to him earlier. He'd been half asleep at the time.

He doesn't know anything else about this doctor. Who he is or what Steve needs him for- something about contacting Thor he thinks- or even what his first name is.

It occurs to him that the doctor might not even be a guy. He really should've paid attention to Steve.

While he's waiting, he takes a look at some of the equipment laying around. Most of it is wired into one of the many outlets. A low hum permeates the air in all directions, so strong that he can feel the vibrations under his feet. It's chilly in here, but his skin is too tough for him to feel it. With so many things plugged in, it's amazing that anything stays on. This one room alone looks like it could power a small city.

He steps around a monitor to look at the screen. It's spitting out numbers faster than he can read. None of them make sense to him, but they seem to add up to something. He leans over the screen as carefully as he can, metal hand supporting his weight on the side.

"Hey! Get off of that."

It's a female voice that shouts at him, and a very small female hand that tries to wrench his fingers off. The woman squeezes herself between him and the computer. She's thin enough that it takes her no effort at all, and short enough that he easily towers over her.

She's pretty, too, but that's a whole other issue.

"This is highly sensitive information that I have poured three months into compiling. If you touch it again, I will cut your hand off."

He backs up to give her some space, and because he's just remembered the lectures his parents used to give him about respecting people's property and not making judgements about a person until he met them.

If this was Dr. Foster, then boy, was he ever off about _her_.

"I wasn't trying to mess with your stuff, Doctor," he says. "Thing is, I'm already missing one hand, so I'd kind of like to keep the other."

He's wearing his glove and jacket, but when he raises his arms, the sleeve falls far enough to let her see his wrist. Her eyes follow the grooves of metal plates as if in a trance. He's not sure what she's thinking, except that she's not backing away in fear or getting tense like she thinks he's going to snap at any second and strangle her.

It's a nice change of pace.

"Okay, just please don't do it again," she says.

She turns to check the monitor, tapping a few keys that don't change what's on the screen, at least as far as he can tell.

"Is that red light supposed to be blinking?" he asks.

"Yeah, that's nothing," Dr. Foster says, still typing. "I'm running diagnostics. I had to at least once a day, because if this thing goes down, even for two seconds, I'll have to recalibrate the sensors and the data will need to be reprocessed. I'd be delayed by a good two days at least, and that may not sound like much, but trust me, when you're measuring atmospheric changes, two days might as well be…"

She stops typing. She turns her head and he can see her cheeks filling with red. She makes a weak sound that is like a mix between a cough and a laugh.

"Sorry. Got a little in the zone there," she says. "I know you don't want to hear this."

"No, it's fine," Bucky says. He shakes his head. "I mean, I do want to hear it. I'm no scientist myself, but I've always thought this sort of thing was pretty interesting."

"You do?" she sounds like she's never before heard those words strung together in that order and directed at her. If that's true, it's a damn shame, because now that he's fully awake and alert, all of this is fascinating him.

"So what else are you doing here?" he asks.

Dr. Foster (he still doesn't know her first name, _shit_ ) breaks out in a smile that lights up her face. Within a half second, she's gone from pretty to utterly beautiful. There's a stray thought in the back of Bucky's mind that he could fall in love with her if he's not careful, and that doesn't sound so bad.

She leads him around the lab, pointing at various machines and explaining their purpose. She answers all his questions (he has a lot), and once she gets to talking about her ultimate goal of creating an Einstein-Rosen Bridge (so _that's_ what it's called), it doesn't seem like she'll ever stop.

Bucky catches a glimpse of movement at the door. Steve is slowly backing away, having stopped short of coming in once he caught sight of them. Steve takes one look at the doctor's hand clamped around Bucky's and grins.

 _'I'll wait,'_ he mouths at Bucky and steps out of view. Dr. Foster doesn't seem to have noticed him. Bucky decides not to tell her just yet. She's on a roll, and he would hate to interrupt her.

He hopes that Steve takes his sweet time in coming back.


	19. Drive By

**A/N: This was a request from Luna-Orlha.**

* * *

Twice a month, Jane turned off all her computers, put her weather monitors on automatic, and took exactly twenty four hours to do nothing but lay on the couch staring at the ceiling. Or the TV. Or maybe she'd go out for a walk and take lunch by the river. Just whatever non-scientific activity happened to tickle her fancy.

Such bi-monthly breaks had been suggested by Erik. He'd seen how much Jane had been throwing herself into work ever since that Nobel Prize nomination. Even if she hadn't won, the recognition alone was enough to spur her forth, and so her friend and surrogate father had taken it upon himself to make sure Jane didn't work herself into an early grave. Taking a day out just to breathe was the foundation of a healthy lifestyle, he'd said, and the best way to stay focused on her work every other day of the month.

It was a good idea, and it really had been good for her mentally. She stopped getting pressure headaches and the increase in physical exercise was doing wonders for her legs and ass.

With that in mind, she was going to have buns of steel when this was over, assuming she could outrun her potential kidnappers and make it out alive.

Jane skidded into an empty alley, hiding behind a dumpster that smelled like moldy feet. The van drove by like something out of a movie. Jane waited as long as the horrible stench would allow, and left before the nausea set in.

She stepped cautiously into the light, checking the streets for any passing cars that were large and black and full of guys carrying guns.

 _'I should have just stayed in and watched that X-Files marathon,'_ Jane thought to herself. _'Maybe then I wouldn't be in this mess.'_

Jane started to run again, when a hand grabbed her from behind and pulled her back into a hard torso. Her captor placed his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. She tasted metal.

"We don't want them hearing you, doll," said a deep male voice in her ear.

Jane relaxed, knowing she was safe. She'd recognize that husky tone anywhere. She'd certainly heard it enough times in her dirty dreams.

"What brings you here, Sergeant?"

Bucky blushed slightly. He always got like that when Jane addressed him by his rank.

"Got a tip that someone would be after you today. I volunteered to check it out."

"Just you?"

"Steve and Barton are rounding up the guys they sent as backup. They should be just about done. All we have to worry about are those guys who chased you in here. They're going to be back."

Jane checked the streets again, even though she could hear nothing of their powerful motors. The only car on the road was an ancient station wagon driven by an old man with a hearing aid, puttering along so slow that a turtle could outpace it.

"My truck is parked in the next block over," she told him.

Bucky nodded, pushed her behind him, and drew his sidearm. After scanning the area one more time, he seemed satisfied that the coast was clear and took Jane by the hand.

She nearly cried in relief as she approached her truck and found it just as she left it. Apparently her would-be kidnappers were smart enough to bring back up, but not to disable her best possible means of escape. Bucky checked the perimeter anyway for explosive devices. His careful inspection turning up nothing and he okayed Jane to start the engine.

"Looks like these guys were dumber than I thought," Bucky said, just as a shot rang out and at least ten guys dressed head to toe in black spilled out of a fenced off area across the street.

Bucky cursed and fired three times. He struck the three closest between the eyes, and they fell. Another took a flying leap and was cut off by a kick to the head. Bucky got him so hard, it looked like his neck broke from the force alone. After that, they all seemed to grow brains and rushed him as a group.

"Get out of here!" Bucky shouted at Jane. He emptied his gun into four more guys, but more were coming. "Go!"

Jane shut the car door. The engine was running, vibrating the seat and the floor under her feet. She could start the car now and be out of here. None of the men sent to take her would care. They were all too busy overwhelming Bucky.

He was a super soldier and a deadly combatant, but not even he could keep it up once he was out of bullets and only had his fists to rely on against fifty guys at once.

 _'Run,'_ yelled the voice of her common sense. _'You have to run. There's nothing you can do to help.'_

Jane's hands dug into the wheel. Her foot was on the gas pedal. The engine revved. She could be out of here in seconds if she just…

But wait… maybe there _was_ something she could do.

Jane swerved out of her parking space. She drove fifty feet, measuring the distance as best as she could with her eye. She spun around at the end of the block. Bucky had moved the fight to the middle of the road, but he was losing strength fast. Pretty soon, he wouldn't be able to even stand.

 _'This is the stupidest thing I've ever done,'_ Jane thought.

Then she floored it.

The tires screeched, but neither Bucky nor his opponents saw her coming until she was ten feet away. They scattered, running in all directions until only Bucky remained, covered in blood and still on his feet, but just barely.

Jane threw open the passenger side door, screaming, "GET IN" at the top of her lungs.

Bucky jumped inside, and Jane peeled around the corner, narrowly missing a man limping on one leg to the curb. Bucky fumbled around, slamming the door shut almost an entire block away.

"What the hell did you just do?" he shouted at her.

"Saved your life from the look of it."

"Are you out of your mind? You could've been hurt! What if they shot at the car? They might've hit you or blown out a tire or got through to the engine, and then you'd be burning to a crisp right now!"

"Hey, how about a 'Thanks for saving me, Jane' before you lecture me? I swear, you're worse than my mother."

"Your mother must have the patience of a saint to deal with you!"

He started to cross his arms, then jumped and let out a groan as he pulled back his shirt to reveal a massive purple splotch forming over his stomach.

"That looks really bad," Jane said.

"It's nothing. I've had worse."

Even though Jane knew that to be true, she couldn't stop staring at him the next time they hit a red light. God only knows how many more injuries he was hiding under those clothes. Thoughts of patching him up invaded Jane's mind. She pictured herself rubbing soothing aloe over his sore muscles, massaging the grooves of his powerful shoulders and back.

"It's green."

"What?" Jane jolted. She looked up and the light was indeed no longer red. "Right, sorry."

"Let's try not to let them catch up, huh?"

Jane smiled. She drove east towards the tower. Hopefully, Captain Rogers would be back by now and able to help her get Bucky some medical attention.

"Pretty good driving back there," Bucky said through his teeth, breaking the silence. "Hate to admit it, but I'm glad you did what you did."

He clapped her shoulder, uncaring of the pain it clearly caused him to move. Jane wished they weren't in the car and he wasn't injured. She might've been bold enough to go for a hug the way she was feeling.

"You're welcome," she said happily.

"But I'd better not see you do anything like that ever again."

"Sorry, Sarge, I can make you no promises."


	20. Blueberries

**A/N: This was a request from marvelfanuniverse.**

 **Happy 4th of July, my fellow Americans!**

* * *

Bucky's memories came back slowly, a little at a time over the course of several months. One of the last things he remembered was that once upon a time, he'd been a smooth ladies man who could get any woman he wanted with just a look. It came to him right after he awkwardly stammered his way through asking the pretty astrophysicist working with Stark on a date.

By some miracle, she said yes. That was how they ended up at the diner five blocks away from Avengers tower.

It had not been his first choice. In his mind, such a classy dame fit more into the backdrop of one of those fancy five star restaurants. He hadn't been to one since '42, but all his attempts to find one were rendered moot when Jane came up to him the night before gushing about the dive on 24th street that served the best blueberry pie she'd even eaten.

He should've known. This was a woman who wore the same three shirts every week and considered Subway sandwiches a high class lunch. She also appeared to have no shame in gobbling down a piece of that pie in two bites, leaving blueberry stains all over her lips. The waitress and a couple of female patrons glared daggers at her, but she just kept eating. She couldn't care less what they thought.

And just when Bucky thought he couldn't like her more.

"Everything okay here?" asked the waitress for the seventh time. She kept coming over even though she had a bunch of other tables to man, and she always spoke directly to him, never to Jane.

"We're fine," Jane answered for him. She took Bucky's hand, squeezing his fingers. "The pie's delicious, right, Bucky?"

"Yeah, it's great." Bucky smiled at the waitress, who turned bright red and scuttled off with a mumble of 'call if you need me.'

She passed two women sitting at the bar who kept stealing glances their way. Bucky smiled politely at them as well, furrowing his brow when they dissolved into giggles and started whispering to each other. If he concentrated, he could probably hear what they were saying, but once Jane pulled a whole berry from the crust and placed it between her lips, everything else seemed to vanish.

"It's so good," she moaned.

Bucky swallowed.

"I could eat this every day. I don't even care how much weight I'd gain."

"Be careful," Bucky said nervously. "You might just turn into a blueberry."

That was a stupid joke, probably the dumbest he'd ever made, but Jane laughed anyway.

"Been watching Willy Wonka, have we?" she asked.

"Willy who?"

The waitress came back with their checks. She placed Bucky's in front of him with care and then casually dropped Jane's somewhere in the vicinity of her hand. The waitress happily reminded Bucky that she was free if he needed anything at all before walking away. Bucky didn't see where she went, he just saw Jane nearly losing the check over the edge of the table trying to pick it up.

"That was kind of rude," Bucky remarked.

"Trust me, I've had worse service," Jane said. "Often for no reason at all. At least this time, I know why she doesn't like me."

"How could anyone not like you?"

Jane covered her mouth, too late to hide a wide grin.

"Same as the other women here. She's jealous."

Bucky blinked. He looked around, and there were indeed at least two other women averting their gazes as if they'd just been caught spying. The waitress, off printing out a check for another table, did not stop staring. She even winked at him.

Oh. Okay, then.

Bucky took Jane by the shoulders, careful to keep his grip light, and kissed her deeply. He tasted blueberry on her lips and tongue, and though she might argue that he was wrong, it was even better than the pie.

"How jealous do you think she is now?" he whispered in her ear.

"Who cares?" she whispered back.

She took her to-go order pie off the table, and they left the restaurant arm in arm.


	21. Chained

**A/N:** **This was a request from ozhawk, who won third prize in my 1000 Followers Giveaway on tumblr.**

* * *

There were a lot of things Jane expected when she accepted Tony Stark's offer to come live in his fancy New York tower and complete her bifrost project on his dime.

Frequent sieges by power hungry supervillains was one of them.

A surprise carnival day on the ground floor that she was contractually obligated to attend was not.

She'd been signing autographs at the same table as Captain America and Ironman for four hours straight. Her hand was in agony by hour two.

Why the hell were so many people lining up? It wasn't like she was a superhero now just because she lived with them.

"You're a world famous scientist is what you are," Tony said when she complained. "Girls think you're inspiring. Guys think you're cute. Simple as that."

So there she was, scribbling shorthand on notebooks and posters (she had posters now), various scientific equipment and people's arms. A little girl, no older than six and wearing fairy wings, ran back to her parents with the right wing bearing Jane's name. After that, Pepper appeared before the crowd to call an end to today's signing session. Though the crowd booed, Jane could've kissed Pepper. She knew who the real fairy godmother around here was.

"Dude, check out this new phone I won at the ring toss!" Darcy did not share Jane's ambivalence towards these proceedings, but why would she? _She_ still had full use of her right arm.

"Not right now, Darcy," Jane said. "I'm trying to rest before… wait, you won a _phone_ at _ring toss_?"

"Eeeey-yup!" Darcy brandished the new Samsung phone, waving around a screen she had already set to a selfie of her and Jane from Liberty Island. "Sixty four gigs."

"What kind of carnival game gives away phones as prizes?"

"The same kind that gives away laptops and sports cars." Darcy pointed at the ring toss game, where the bewildered mother of one lucky ten year old had just been handed a set of car keys. "I was trying for the Cadillac, but the phone will do."

Jane looked for Tony. He was showing off his new armor for a group of starry-eyed children. His eyes flicked to Jane and he gave her a thumbs up.

 _'Rich people…'_ Jane thought.

"It's the balloon popping game that gives the really good prizes," Darcy said.

"Better than new phones and cars?"

"Way better. Like, 'super advanced technology not available to the general public' better."

Jane was about to ask (not that she wanted to) when Darcy produced a pair of metallic cuffs from her messenger bag. That thing was full to bursting with whatever other questionable prizes she had won. At least a few of them glowed bright blue. Jane wrote that off for now and took the cuffs to examine them. On their own, they seemed pretty innocuous. Small and circular, barely wide enough to go over her hand. They were a little heavy, but not by much. Jane gently tapped one side and listened for a clang or an echo. She got nothing. It wasn't vibranium, but it had to be made of something almost as strong. The surface was warm to the touch, but that could be written off as a result of hot weather. Could be, were it not for the faint, steady hum that focused around a blank screen next to a tiny black hole, too small for even her pinky finger.

Jane held up the second cuff. It looked the same as the first, with the same blank screen and mysterious hole.

"What is this supposed to be?" she asked.

Darcy grinned, snatching back both cuffs with a dangerous look in her eye. Jane knew that look well. She feared it.

"Let me show you," Darcy said.

Something beeped three times, and Jane felt warm metal close around her wrist. She gasped in pain. Another beep preceded a hissing sound, and then the clamp loosened and stopped crushing her bones. She held her arm up. The screen on the cuff had jumped to life. It flashed red and green over a few more beeps, then settled on bright red.

"What the- get this thing off of me!" Jane pulled and pushed at the cuff. She tried to make her hand as skinny as possible and slide it off, but it was a snug fit. It wouldn't move an inch in either direction.

"But isn't it cool? Super futuristic handcuffs that not even super people can break. Tony says that someday, every cop on the street will be using these."

"And he's giving them away to the public as carnival prizes?"

"Well, actually, the balloon popping game is over in the restricted section. Only people like us who live in the tower can get these. I mean, come on, the man's not stupid. Who knows what kind of trouble a kid could get into with these."

"I'm afraid to think about what _you'd_ do with them, much less a kid."

"Wow, rude."

"Just take it off."

"Fine, fine. Party pooper." Darcy went for Jane's other arm, only for Jane to leap backwards.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I need to put the other one on first. That's how it works."

"Oh no, you are not handcuffing me."

"You're already halfway there, and I can't take them off one at a time."

"Forgive me if I have a hard time believing that."

"Too bad, it's still true. Now quit squirming and let me-"

"No, get-"

"Would you just-"

Another click. Another three beeps.

Darcy and Jane froze. Jane had one foot off the ground as she'd been attempting to push Darcy off by her stomach. Darcy had climbed all over her trying to reach Jane's free arm. They looked ridiculous stuck in this pose, but neither one of them had the brainspace left to worry about it. Jane craned her neck all the way up and ran her eyes over her uncuffed arm. A chainlike gold appendage had sprung from the cuff, feeding into its partner to join them together as one. The second cuff was out of Darcy's hand and firmly placed around another person's wrist.

Their metal wrist.

 _'Oh no,'_ Jane thought.

A pair of bright blue eyes looked down at her. Bucky Barnes had one hand outstretched over her shoulder. Whether he'd wanted to stop the fight or Tony asked him to come and get her for more autograph signing, Jane didn't know. It was moot at this point. He clenched his fist and studied the cuff, the solid neon green that shined through both screens at them.

"Erm…" Bucky said, nonplussed, "what is this?"

He tried to raise his arm, and his impromptu experiment confirmed Jane's theory as she was dragged away from Darcy and off her feet. She let out a yelp and Bucky's arm snapped back to his side.

"Sorry," he said. "I just… how did that…?"

"They're my new handcuffs," Darcy said, pushing between them. "Really cool technology. I don't think even that arm of yours can break them."

Bucky furrowed his brow. He started pulling at his cuff just as Jane had, struggling to make it budge. Being a man accustomed to hand to hand combat, he was already miles ahead of Jane in the strength department, even before one factored in the super soldier part, but even he couldn't make a dent in the metal. He pushed so hard that a vein popped up on his forehead. When that failed, he muttered an apology to Jane before taking her by the wrist. He squeezed lightly to avoid hurting her, then a little harder when that did nothing.

"Dammit!" He dropped her arm. "What the hell is this made of? I should've at least left a mark!"

"I told you, you can't break them," Darcy said with a roll of her eyes. "They're indestructible."

"It's all right, Sergeant Barnes," Jane said quickly. "Darcy has the key. _Doesn't she?_ "

Jane rounded on Darcy, who held up her hands in surrender.

"Of course. I have it right here in my bag." Darcy shoved a hand inside, rummaging around bulking prizes and straining the seams more than they already were. She searched far longer than Jane would've liked, and gradually, Darcy's face fell. "Er… okay, I know where I can get another one. You two wait right here. I'll be back in ten."

Darcy dashed off, disappearing into the crowd and not allowing Jane or Bucky to get a single word in. Jane ground her teeth, trying desperately to avert her eyes from Bucky. Her whole body was tense, hairs standing up on the back of her neck. She'd never been this close to him for this long before.

"I just wanted to get a hot dog," he was saying.

"You should've taken the longer route," said Jane. She sunk back onto the bench, taking Bucky with her.

"If I had, you could be cuffed to a crazy person right now," said Bucky.

Jane conceded his point, but refrained from saying so.

Seconds turned to minutes, which turned to almost twenty minutes, but it felt more like an hour to Jane, as Bucky proved to not be much of a conversationalist.

"You sure she's coming back?" he asked eventually.

"Of course I'm sure," Jane said, though her voice was fading. "I know Darcy, and she wouldn't just leave us like this."

"I'm starting to doubt that."

"Well, don't."

"Too late."

"Then shut up and leave me alone."

"Let go of my arm."

"I can't!"

"Then I can't leave you alone!"

"Well, you can shut up."

There was a tiny twitch in his left eye as his lips sealed into a line. Jane had never noticed it before, but it was clear to her now that she was up and in his face, her body a hair's breath from pressing into his. That was a position she didn't know how she'd gotten into. She could've sworn she'd been sitting down, and not starting a fight with the guy she was currently chained to and had been crushing on for over a month. If she didn't know better, she'd say that Darcy planned this, because fuck, he was even more gorgeous up close than he was from far away.

And now she was handcuffed to him.

This really wasn't Jane Foster's day.

* * *

This really wasn't Bucky Barnes' day.

Bad enough that he'd been dragged to this stupid carnival on a day he wanted to spend quietly in his apartment, but now he was handcuffed to Dr. Jane Foster, and he couldn't even go get a hot dog.

It had to be that Lewis did this on purpose. That nosy idiot must have figured out how crazy in love with her boss Bucky was, so she came up with an elaborate plan to stick them together and make him confess. She was probably in the crowd now watching them, wringing her hands in glee. It was a shame she wasn't an international terrorist or a criminal. He couldn't even justify throwing her in a holding cell until she handed over the key.

He would just have to make do and pray that Jane was right and Darcy would come back. Otherwise, God might as well strike him down now and save him from humiliating himself in front of his dream girl.

He had a sinking suspicion that neither would be happening.


	22. Number 45

**A/N:** **This was a request from thordisx on tumblr, based on this fanart:** **/post/148493398476/james-b-barnes-no-45**

* * *

The referee blew his whistle, and the stands erupted in cheers. Out on the field, Number 45 was being lifted onto the shoulders of his teammates, and somewhere in the endless sea of elated voices, the chanting of his name could be heard. Jane covered her ears and shied away from the onslaught of noise, almost putting her head in the lap of the person next to her.

"Woah there, Jane," said Tony. "I like you and all, but I don't think we're ready to take our relationship to that level."

"Very funny," she said. "It'll be even funnier when I tell Pepper you said that."

Tony wore a hurt look that Jane ignored. Out on the field, Number 45 led his teammates in shaking hands with their defeated opponents. Their helmets were off, and Jane could see from their bitter smiles that some members of the other team weren't taking the loss so well. Whatever the Spartans had done to win the game, Jane couldn't say. One guy threw the ball, Number 45 caught it, then he started running, and at one point the crowd just went nuts.

 _'Why couldn't he have been a baseball player instead? I understand how baseball works.'_

Not that lamenting the 'what could have beens' was going to help her now, and if she was honest, watching Number 45 run to the sidelines was always a treat. His ass looked so good in those pants…

"-so I was just thinking how great it would be if we kidnapped Bruce, tied him to the bed, and had our wicked way with him."

 _"What?_ _"_ Jane's head snapped to one side, and Tony cracked a grin.

"Oh, you _are_ listening. Okay, so we're celebrating our team's impressive victory at my place. We'd better go, because I have to make sure everything is ready."

* * *

The party was in full swing by the time they got there. Jane didn't know how that could be when Tony typically drove just a hair's breadth below the speed limit and most of their classmates should still be at the game, but she'd learned since transferring to this school and somehow getting into Tony's inner circle that she shouldn't ask questions. This was just how Tony Stark rolled.

The majority of the Spartans arrived with great fanfare, the rowdy partygoers parting to let them pass like peasants before royalty. One girl couldn't contain herself and jumped into the arms of one of the players. With a drunken laugh, she attempted to plant one on him, only for him to turn his head so that she only got his cheek and some of his ear. Jane winced in sympathy for the guy, whose rigid stance betrayed how little he enjoyed the attention.

A buddy of his was able to extract the woman from around him, and Jane felt a stab of something unpleasant as the strobe light flashed on them. It was Number 45.

Jane stepped behind a pillar out of sight. It wasn't much, but it made her feel less exposed as she watched him talk to his friend before yet another gaggle of girls sidled up to them. That was where Jane left it, before she started to feel creepy for eavesdropping. She wandered around for a bit before finding Bruce and Tony by the DJ. The pounding dubstep music drove a nail through Jane's skull from across the room. Up close and personal, it was an all new kind of agony, and she didn't know how they could stand it.

"Janey, there you are!" Tony yelled. "Having fun?"

"Not as much as you've had from the looks of it." Jane had to speak to the empty space next to Tony's head to avoid another whiff of his breath.

"Yeah, I'm getting bored, too," he admitted, tossing aside an empty beer bottle. "I don't even really like football. That's more Bruce's thing."

"Yes it is," Bruce said under his breath.

"I'm more of a baseball kind of guy," said Tony. "You feel me?"

Jane smiled. "I definitely feel you."

"Yes!" Tony traded a fist bump with her. "Game of nerds! Except for Bruce. Bruce is like a super nerd."

"Thanks Tony," said Bruce, who looked less irritated than his words implied.

"Come on, let's get out of here." Tony walked to the double doors leading to a hallway Jane prayed was soundproof. "I got some stuff going in the basement that you've got to see."

"I'll be right with you guys," Jane said, stepping backwards. "Just gonna get another soda."

She ran to the refreshment table, relieved to see that no busybodies had descended upon it and taken all the Dr. Pepper away. She grabbed a fresh bottle, was about to open it when a large hand covered hers.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Jane lost her breath. It was the first time she'd ever been less than ten feet away from Number 45, and he was right in front of her. Touching her. He hadn't let go of her hand, and he wasn't going to.

"Sorry," he said. "Not trying to freak you out, but a bunch of chuckleheads thought it would be funny to shake all the bottles. Trust me when I say you don't want this stuff on your clothes."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience."

"Let's just say some of my teammates have really bad senses of humor."

He let go as Jane loosened her grip on the bottle. He didn't back away but to give her some more space, and the rave lights were bright enough to see him in all his glory. It was almost unfair how gorgeous he was, from his sturdy jawline to his bright blue eyes. The rest of him was just as distracting. Without the bulky football equipment, he was still broad shouldered and built like a tank. He looked like he could bench press her with ease, and the idea alone sent shivers down Jane's spine.

"Thanks for the warning," she said. "I'm Jane, by the way."

"I know, I was there when you gave that oral report on dark matter," he said. "I'm Bucky Barnes. Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, you too," Jane said, and she would've said a lot more, had something not stuck out to her. "Do you have any brothers?"

"Brothers?" He blinked. "Nope. A bunch of sisters, though."

"It's just that there was this big citywide writing contest a few weeks ago, and the winner was this guy, James Barnes. I know Barnes is a common name, but it's a small town, so I thought you might-"

He started laughing. At what, Jane didn't know. Unless her pointless rambling was funnier than she thought.

"Okay, I guess I should re-do my introduction," he said. He then stooped over in a comical bow. "James Buchanan Barnes. Also known as Bucky. At your service."

"Wait, what?" Jane took a moment, letting the information sink in. " _You're_ James Barnes? You wrote the story that won?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I don't really know why people liked it so much. It was just some junk I wrote down about my dog from when I was a kid."

"But it was so beautiful," Jane said. "I must've read it a hundred times."

"Thanks," he said. "Glad you liked it."

"I loved it. You could have a career in writing."

"Nah," he said. "I'd get bored just sitting around typing. I need to be more active than that. Speaking of which, you want to do something some time?"

Jane opened her mouth to issue a rebuttal. He could easily write for an hour or so and then go de-stress with some physical activity. It was a good idea, she thought, both for encouraging his talent and keeping the conversation going as long as possible.

Then he asked that question, and Jane promptly lost all semblance of speech capability.

"Wha-" After that was just a faint hiss.

"You okay?" Bucky asked.

"I… you just asked me to… like, by 'something', you mean…"

"A movie? Or dinner? Or just a walk in the park? Something like that."

"Like a date."

"Unless you don't want to."

Jane clamped her mouth shut before she could blurt out anything stupid, like screaming to the heavens that yes, she absolutely wanted to go out with him, and then taking a page out of that horny girl's book and jumping on him.

"I do," she said, her voice breaking on the second word. "I mean, I do. I really do, I just… I'm kind of surprised that you'd ask."

"Well, the truth is, I've been wanting to ask you out for a while," he said. "Ever since that speech. You kind of blew me away with all that physics stuff."

"And here I thought I put everyone to sleep," Jane said with a self-deprecating laugh.

He shook his head. "You sounded like you knew more than all the teachers combined, and I've always loved science. I don't need to have a beautiful girl talk about it, but that is a plus."

His hands came around her waist, pulling her into a rock solid body. Jane felt like she could die right here and walk into the afterlife with no regrets.

"So," he said. "Saturday wok for you?"

"I think I can squeeze you in." She took him by the arm, gently leading him towards the back door away from the pulsing music. "But if you really love science, I know a way cooler party we could be at."


	23. Slave for a Day

**A/N: Requested by Sparky She-Demon.**

* * *

He was going to kill Darcy Lewis.

And he was going to kill Steve, too, for that matter.

It was because of those two conniving idiots that he was in this mess. They were the ones who suggested betting on the World Series, and they were the ones who decided it would be so funny if his punishment for losing was having to be Jane Foster's personal lab monkey for a week.

Okay, so it wasn't all bad. The biggest plus was that he got to hang out with Jane in close quarters for long periods of time.

The downside was that he had to hang out with Jane in close quarters for long periods of time.

It was just like Steve and Darcy to try and play matchmaker. He'd been stupid enough to let it slip to Steve his feelings for the doctor, and then Steve had been stupid enough to go running to his new girlfriend to tell _her_. How could that punk ever think that was a good idea? You don't tell Darcy Lewis things like that.

Because the girl was insane. And she was nosy. And when you combined those two traits into one person, you ended up on your hands and knees sweeping dust out from under a computer module that beeped constantly like a bomb about to go off.

"Could you do the next one, too, please?"

"Okay, Jane."

At least he hadn't been made to call her 'Ma'am' or 'Mistress' like Darcy wanted. Unlike her, Jane was completely rational, and she'd only gone along with this 'slave' thing after an hour of Darcy convincing her to give it a shot. At least for one day. They were now into hour four of that day, and so far, all he'd done was clean the windows, collect trash, and move a couple of heavy things around the room.

"I need that binder on the bottom shelf," she said, pointing at the bookcase across from her desk. "Sixth from the left."

"Got it."

He bent over and counted out six. While he ticked off the numbers, his heightened senses flared up, letting him know he was being watched. If anyone else had been in the room with them, he would have been concerned. Since it was Jane, he figured she just wanted to make sure he got the right one. He thought nothing of it until he turned around and she hastily went back to her work, her cheeks a bright shade of pink.

"Is this it?"

"Yup," she squeaked. "You could just put it there next to the ass. Assessment papers. That's what I meant."

Bucky dropped the binder as she directed, curious of her odd behavior. She had her head almost on the keyboard, typing away at a fervent pace. Little words she muttered made no sense even to his sensitive ears. He would've written it off and gone back to sweeping, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was up with her.

"Anything else you need?" he asked.

"Not right now," she said. "If you could check behind the shelves for more dust, then turn on the air conditioner. I'm sorry it's so warm in here, by the way."

"It's fine. I'm not hot."

"Oh, I beg to differ…"

Bucky paused as her whispered words hit him. The beginnings of a smile touched his features. She probably thought he hadn't heard that.

He was glad that he did. Now he understood why Darcy was so sure Jane would agree to this. He was still going to get back at her, but maybe he wouldn't kill her after all. Maybe he'd just crush her ipod or something like that.

"You know, I'm pretty sure Darcy thought of this because she wanted you to make me your sex slave or something."

"That would be a very 'Darcy' thing to do," Jane said.

Bucky picked up a broom and started sweeping. He made sure to get right next to her and bend over a little, just to tease her.

"That might not be so bad," he said.

She snorted. "Right. So if I told you, 'kiss me now', you'd drop that broom and- mmph!"

That was exactly what he did. The wooden handle clattered to the floor and Bucky kicked it away as he lifted Jane to her feet. He kissed her soundly, swallowing every word she tried to say until she let out a moan and melted into his arms. She nearly ripped his shirt clean off clawing at it, grasping for leverage to pull herself closer, but Bucky didn't think they could be any closer at this point.

She broke the kiss first and took a breath, her forehead resting against his as she gulped down air.

"Do that again," she said huskily. "That's an order, Sergeant."

Let it never be said that James Barnes didn't know when to follow orders.


	24. When It's Over

**A/N: Requested by otptilltheend.**

* * *

He felt like punching a wall.

No, that wasn't right. What he wanted to punch was Thor Odinson. In the face. Repeatedly.

He knew that he could, with his newly made vibranium arm. Even if he couldn't permanently damage Thor's stupid pretty boy bitch face, drawing blood would be immensely satisfying.

Of course, beating up Jane's ex-boyfriend probably wasn't going to win him any favors. She wasn't the type to look for retribution in physical violence. When Thor broke the news to her that he had found someone else, she had taken it with a smile on her face, shook his hand and congratulated him on his new romance. Then she had retreated to her office where her soft cries well into the night ripped Bucky's heart to shreds. Just his luck that he'd ended up rooming right across from her. He could hear everything she did in there.

Of course, after that one night, she was right back to business the next day. She worked on her own or with Stark and Banner, she took her meals with Darcy Lewis and sometimes went out on the town with her. Most of the time, she was shut up in her lab, but that was par the course. Nothing unusual there.

It still felt wrong to Bucky. There was a spark in her eye that he didn't see anymore. It worried him so much, that he found himself using all his free time helping her out in any way he could. Mostly that amounted to manual labor and listening to her talk about her theories, but he wasn't complaining.

"Are you doing okay?" he asked her one day.

She was soldering some wires together, but had stopped to look over her work. He took the opportunity to address the elephant in the room.

"I'm fine," she answered. "Just a little behind schedule. Might stay an extra fifteen or twenty minutes to-"

"I meant Thor," he said quickly. Too quickly. His words came out in a jumble and he was pretty sure she wouldn't appreciate him just butting into her personal life without at least being decent enough to ease into it. "I mean… how are you doing since the whole break up thing…"

She had gone completely stiff. Her palms were flat on the table over some loose leaf paper. The pages bent and crumpled as her fingers curled up.

"I'm fine," she said again, much more curtly and less convincingly. "That happened days ago. It doesn't matter anymore."

It sure seemed to matter a lot. Unless Bucky had lost all his knowledge of women with his memories, there was a hell of a lot there that she wasn't addressing.

"I'm here to talk if you need it."

"I know," she said. "I'll let you know if I ever do."

She moved away from what she'd been fixing back to her desk. She turned her main computer on and typed in a few commands, muttering nonsense words under her breath. Bucky blew out some air and went to sit across from her. This was what he did when she got to this part of her day, when she worked on her new programs for the prototype bridge and existed for an hour or two in her own world that no one else could be a part of.

Normally, he hated to be the one to break her out of it, but this just seemed like one of those times where it was necessary.

"Can I just say one thing?"

She sighed and glanced up over her brow.

"Technically you already did, but go ahead."

Bucky gave a half smile. "Just wanted to say that you're beautiful. Incredibly beautiful. And the most amazing, intelligent woman I've ever met. Just wanted you to know that."

Whatever she expected him to say, that wasn't it. Her body language shifted in the most drastic of ways, and it would've worried Bucky had she not coughed a rushed 'thank you' in that painfully endearing way of hers. She went back to her work with renewed fervor, and spoke not a word to Bucky for the rest of the day.

When she turned in for the night and Bucky walked her to the door, she bade him good night as she had a hundred times before.

Tonight, her eyes sparkled.

Bucky had never seen anything so perfect in his life.


	25. Call Waiting

**A/N: So this is actually based on a true story. The other day, I was at anime club, and the girl sitting next to me forgot her wallet, so I had to message her to get it back to her, and then my buddy Ozhawk was like, 'that's a perfect OTP prompt!' So now I've written this. :D**

 **Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Bucky hit something with his foot. He rolled the sole of his shoe over it and felt a roundish lump that slipped across the floor with no resistance. Furrowing his brow, Bucky reached down to touch a lacquered wooden floor and something thick and bulging made of leather. He withdrew it and held it up to the light. It was a wallet, well made and faded from frequent usage. The clasp was broken off with a piece of duct tape covering the hole. A rubber band held it closed, and it looked like there was more scratch paper stuffed inside than anything important.

It wasn't what he expected to find when he decided to get a slice of sausage and mushroom pizza for dinner, but it wasn't a shocker either. One could easily assume that the wallet's owner had been so busy enjoying their greasy, artery clogging dinner that they'd forgotten to shove their wallet back into their bag. He could understand that. Back in college, he'd once had a pizza so good, that he left the restaurant without his pants on. Why he'd taken them off in the first place probably had something to do with all the beer that came with the pizza, but it had still been one of the best meals of his life.

The waitress wandered over, a flirty smile on her face that Bucky happily returned. He wasn't so humble as to deny that he had that effect on women, especially now that his buddies at the gym had gotten him into powerlifting. He gave her his order and started fiddling with the wallet. There was no outward indication of who it might belong to. The style suggested a man, but a tiny slip of paper sticking out bore the name, 'Jane'. That could be the owner of the wallet, but it could also be the owner's friend. Or their wife. Or just a random acquaintance who had barely anything to do with them.

There was only one way to find out. Bucky eased the rubber band off of the wallet. Immediately, all the papers spilled out. Bucky cursed and gathered them together. He picked up the first one. His eyes widened at the chaotic mess of numbers and equations that met him. The handwriting was rough, yet legible. Notes scrawled in the margins spoke of something about a bridge and parallel dimensions. Bucky read on, though many of the more impressive words flew over his head. That was kind of annoying; he'd always done well when he was in school. He got As in all his subjects and graduated college near the top of his class. Science had been a favorite of his, but this was some of the most advanced science he'd ever seen in his life.

Most of the other papers were the same. A couple had no numbers, and were just general notes about due dates and schedule changes. One talked about telling someone named Darcy to stop drinking all the hazelnut coffee and to go buy her own. The one thing every slip of paper he found lacked was a phone number.

He looked at what else was in the wallet and had more luck. He found a driver's license, and Jane was indeed the owner of this wallet. Her picture was nothing special, but he didn't hold that against her. Nobody looked good on their driver's license photo, and hers was certainly better than his 'messy hair and eyes half closed' look. Among the rest of the papers was a social security card, a voter's registration card (she was an independent; he could respect that), and a few other pages of mathematics and physics mumbo jumbo, until finally, he hit the jackpot.

It seemed Ms. Foster had lost her cell phone at some point in the previous days. Her new number was written in big block letters with, 'give this to Erik' penciled over it. Whoever Erik was, it was a good thing Ms. Foster didn't give him her new number first.

Whipping out his phone, Bucky typed in the number. Six rings later, she still hadn't answered, and he was just waiting for the voicemail to come on when the receiver clicked.

"Hello?"

She had a nice voice, soft and feminine, but with a hint of urgency simmering below the surface.

"Hi, is this Jane Foster?" Bucky asked.

"Speaking."

"My name's Bucky Barnes. We've never met before, but I'm at Frank's Pizza over on 23rd street, and I think I might have your wal-"

"YOU FOUND MY WALLET!"

Bucky ripped the phone away from his ear. Boy, did she have some lungs. He was pretty sure they could hear that all the way in Brooklyn.

"Yeah," Bucky said tentatively. "I had to open it to get your number, but I made sure not to drop anything. If you want, I can hang out, and you can-:

"I'll be right there!"

The line went dead. Bucky listened a few seconds more just to be sure, but his screen had gone back to the homepage, rendering it a moot point.

She hadn't told him when she'd be there, so Bucky stayed a long time after his pizza had been consumed. He rolled the cheese shaker around the table, wishing he'd brought a book or something. He killed two minutes checking his voicemail; nothing but telemarketers and Steve wanting to know if they were at Sam's place to watch the game tonight.

The bell above the door rang, and Bucky looked up. The last few times someone came in, it hadn't been Jane Foster. Hadn't even been anyone who looked remotely like her. This time, it was a petite, lithe woman in a flannel shirt and jeans. Her hair was whipped around her face and she was breathing heavily as if from running. She bypassed the counter completely, running into the dining room. She locked eyes with Bucky, who smiled and held up her wallet.

"Hey, I-"

It seemed she was incapable of letting him finish a sentence. She couldn't hang up on him this time, but she could jump into his arms and hug him around the waist with surprising strength. He had the wind momentarily knocked out of him and held onto to a chair to keep his balance.

"Thank you thank you thank you!" She cried. "Oh my god, I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't find this thing. My entire life's work is in there."

That seemed like the kind of thing you wouldn't want to leave in your wallet, especially when said wallet didn't close properly. Bucky was in no position to offer this kind of criticism, so he held his tongue and hoped that her papers weren't meant to be in some crucial order that he'd messed up.

"Happy to help," he said. "I figured you'd be pulling your hair out trying to find it."

"You have no idea," she said. "Just my luck that I'd lose it in a place I've never been to before. I feel like such an idiot."

"I'd have to disagree with you on that one." Nobody who worked with numbers like she did could ever be called an idiot.

"Then you're a step up from my intern. She likes to hold it over my head all the times I almost forgot my notes because I was so anxious about giving a lecture." She pouted. "She also thinks she has to remind me to eat, which she doesn't, for the record. I can feed myself just fine."

"But that first part is true?"

She gave no answer, which was answer enough. Her feet weren't touching the ground anymore. She hung off of him like a necklace and seemed to have forgotten that most people didn't hug complete strangers this long. Or at all.

She did let go and compose herself, pushing the hair out of her face. He had been right that she was much prettier than her ID photo. In fact, she was beautiful. She could've been a model with a face like that. Or royalty. If she turned out to be the lost princess of some European island, he wouldn't be surprised.

"Thank you so much again, Mr. Barnes," she said. "Is there anything I can do to repay you?"

A few things came to mind right away, none of which he could ever say out loud unless he wanted to come off as a massive creep and get slapped.

"Just try not to lose it again," he said. "This is Manhattan. Most people aren't as nice as me."

"That's another thing my intern says…" she gave a weak laugh and stepped towards the door. "Well, you have my number. If you ever need help with anything science related, I'm your girl."

 _'I wish,'_ he thought. "No problem."

They never broke eye contact as she walked backwards towards the door. Bucky didn't, just waited for her to stop what she was doing and come back. She made outside, then doubled back and returned to take her wallet out of Bucky's outstretched hand.

"Need to put a chain on this thing," she mumbled.

"I could help you with that," Bucky told her. "Give me a call sometime."

"I will," she said distractedly.

Or so Bucky thought until his phone rang two days later, and her number came up on his call ID.

* * *

 **A/N: Another one I didn't know how to finish...**

 **I have to get better at this.**


	26. Blast from the Past

**A/N: Requested by jeadamized.  
**

* * *

 **1941**

That night, Bucky had his best suit on, and his hair slicked back out of his face. His mother brushed off his jacket before he left, gushing at what a handsome man her boy had become. She wiped a smudge off his cheek, and Bucky griped at her for treating him like he was ten again, but he didn't try to stop her.

He had already checked himself in front of the mirror. He'd taken even longer than his sisters did when they went on dates, but the bruise around his eye from his last fight hadn't healed yet. That was fine; the other guy was even worse off. Bucky rubbed some cream on the purple splotch and called it a night. He was looking sharp, he was high off a third victory in the boxing ring, and there was a pretty little thing waiting for him at the dance hall tonight.

He got there just in time. The band was playing his favorite swing tune. A few friends from Goldie's gym called him over, and some girls sidled up to him, hoping to get the first dance. His girl was at the bar, getting her drink refilled and holding her glass between dainty fingers. She sipped slowly, relaxedly. Bucky licked his lips and moved through the crowd. She wore a red dress tonight; it hugged her waist and flared at the skirt. She was a little thing, lacking in curves, but you would never know it. Matching pumps adorned her feet. A flower had been woven into her long brown tresses, red of course. Her pale skin shined in the warm glow of firelight.

"Can I buy you another?" he asked.

A smile made her all the more stunning.

"Depends," she said coyly. "Do I get a dance?"

"You can have all the dances you want, doll."

He held out a hand, which she took. They moved onto the dance floor, spent the next three songs gazing into each other's eyes. Her chocolate browns seemed to hold the entire world in them, his for the taking. In that moment, he wanted nothing more but to stay like this, with Gladys Fischer in his arms forever and always.

"I saw your fight," she said. He spun her around and brought her back in. "You were good."

"Impressed, huh?"

"A bit," she answered, but her tone and the way she let her fingers run across his shoulder said it all. "We should go out on the town sometime. Just the two of us."

"We could go to the gym," Bucky suggested. "Or my place. I could show you some moves."

"And what kind of moves do you know?"

The conversation tapered off, as the band struck up a soulful ballad. The mournful notes caressed Bucky's ears. He buried his head into Gladys's hair and kissed her temple. She sighed and hugged him tighter. She was so soft and she smelled like heaven. Bucky committed it to memory. If he never got another night with her, then he never wanted to forget this one.

* * *

 **2016**

"I have to admit, this is the most impressive piece of machinery I have ever seen in my life."

Jane was of course referring to the fully functional vibranium metal arm she had just helped attach to a formerly brainwashed assassin. Said former assassin had been out of cryo for two days now, receiving the first of what would be many intense hypnotherapy sessions to remove the compulsions left behind by HYDRA. Jane had not be there for any of that, so this would be her first time meeting James Buchanan Barnes in person.

That was a bit overwhelming. Before he was the Winter Soldier, a living, breathing human being in desperate need of help, he was a war hero she'd done a report on in eighth grade American History. He was her college roommate's historical crush, the long dead figure she would sleep with if given the chance. Lord only knows what that girl would think if she was here now.

"It is damn good work," said Tony. He wore a smug expression as was common for him, though it was weaker than usual, and he had his feet planted firmly by the door. "I mean, I can't take all the credit. Wakanda is pretty good in the science department. By the way, Jane, King Felix the Cat asked me to let you know he's got some people who want to meet you. Fans. You know how that goes."

Jane nodded. She had stopped listening back at the part about it being good work. It _was_ good work. It was insanely good work. Revolutionary work even. That her only contribution had been running diagnostics before and after the surgery was disappointing. If only she'd been there when they were constructing it.

"I can't thank you enough for this, Tony," Steve Rogers said, for what had to be the hundredth time. "I know that after what happened… you didn't have to help."

"My dad would have," Tony said. Jane didn't think he'd meant the words to hurt, but Steve reacted like he'd been slapped. "This doesn't mean everything's cool now. I get that it wasn't his fault, but I still… I need some time."

Jane had been filled in by a helpful member of His Majesty's security detail what had happened during the Accords fiasco. It filled her with such horror, and sadness for everyone involved. Tony was a good friend of hers, and to think that this was how he'd lost his parents, and that this poor man in the hospital bed had been forced against his will to kill so many innocents… it was a mess. It was a terrible, miserable mess of a situation.

At least things were getting better, as far as she could tell. Tony and Steve were talking again and they seemed to have come to some kind of agreement. He'd reconciled with Pepper, and she was waiting for him in the penthouse suite back at the hotel. All charges against the so-called 'Team Cap' had been dropped, and wherever they were now, it seemed like no one would be coming after them any time soon. The rift that divided the Avengers was still there, but it was closing. Slowly. It was going to a lot of work, but it _was_ working.

The heart monitor on the wall sped up; the anesthetic was wearing off. Barnes groaned and twitched, as Tony excused himself out of the room. Jane would've liked to do the same and give these two a little privacy, but part of her job here was making sure the arm was working properly before an in-depth examination could be performed.

"Just so you know, he might not be all there when he wakes up," she said. "Anesthesia is tricky. He's going to be groggy and confused for a while."

"That's no worse than he is already," Steve said sadly.

Barnes lifted his arm, the new one. Mechanical sounds came from within; only the ones Jane expected to here. He rubbed his face. He furrowed his brow and opened his eyes. He then seemed to remember that he was partially robotic now and let it drop.

"My head…" he mumbled.

"He's not fully conscious yet," Jane explained. "I'm no medical doctor, but I do know it's going to be a while before he-"

"Gladys?"

He was looking at her. Not through her or behind her, but _at_ her. His eyes were on hers and there was something captivating in that deep shade of blue. Jane couldn't look away, not even when he broke into a loopy smile and took her by the wrist.

"Gladys…"

"Er- I'm not-"

He pulled her down, and even with his human arm, his strength was through the roof. Jane yelped and fell on top of him. It didn't faze him, and he lifted her up to plant a wet kiss on her lips. At first it was like the time her neighbor's dog slobbered all over her, then he started coming back to himself. He retracted a little, easing up on the assault. His lips moved over hers with finely honed technique, and as Jane registered the feel of his tongue entering her mouth, all traces of fight left her. She let out a moan that she couldn't control. It must've been horrible of her, to take advantage of a patient like this-though it wasn't like she'd been given a choice-but by god, he was the best kisser she'd ever met. And she'd kissed a thunder god!

"Wait," he said, breaking the contact, "you're not Gladys."

"I'm Jane," she breathed. Her heart roared in her ears loud enough to be painful. "I'm here to help you."

"Oh, okay." His eyelids drooped. "You're very pretty, and I liked kissing you."

"Thank you."

"Welcome…"

His hands went slack, and Jane could move again. She straightened her clothes and her posture. She looked at Steve and saw why he hadn't bothered to try and separate them.

"I did not see that coming," he muttered. His mouth hung open like a nutcracker's. It seemed to be locked in place.

"Who's Gladys?" Jane asked.

Steve shook his head. "Buck dated her in the forties, but it didn't work out. You do kind of look like her, at least from far away. I can't believe he remembered that..."

It appeared Barnes remembered a lot more than Steve thought he did. That, or the effects of another few months in stasis, followed by going under for a grueling and painful operation had caused something deep within his psyche to be unearthed. Either way, Jane doubted this was the last she'd ever hear of James Buchanan Barnes.

Hopefully next time, he could get to know her as Jane.


	27. Tech Support

**A/N: Requested by marvelfanuniverse.  
**

* * *

"Hello, thank you for calling tech support. My name is Jane, how may I help you?"

These words were like a mantra to Jane, permanently engraved in her skull like words in stone. So many times she had spoken them in the past year, either to a person in her ear or herself in the mirror. Her roommate got so sick of it that she tried to get the walls soundproofed. It was only when Jane reminded her of how much money that would cost that Darcy dropped it and invested in a pair of earplugs instead.

Jane's entire work week consisted of repeating those words ad infinitum. In between that, she answered obvious questions posed to her by the elderly and tried to assist those too cheap to bring their equipment into the shop in fixing their own hardware. If she was lucky, she went a whole day without some asshole snapping at her for being 'useless' and not providing a magical solution to his malware problem. So far, today was turning out to be such a day. Would that it could last forever.

After helping a grandmother open the attachment in an email from her grandson, Jane picked up the next call in the queue and hoped for another old lady.

"Hello, thank you for calling tech support. My name is Jane, how may I help you?"

It was not an old lady.

"Hi Jane. I've got a big problem this time."

He said that like they were the most sinful words in the English language. Were it not for the hint of snickering at the end, she'd think he really expected her to start an illicit seduction game with him on a tech support line.

"Hi Bucky," she said, using the name he'd introduced himself with six phone calls ago. "Do you have a _real_ big problem this time?"

That came out a lot dirtier than she intended. She just hoped he had enough class not to start talking about other 'big' things he may or may not have.

"I always have a real problem, Janie. Can't help it if I'm computer illiterate."

"Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if you were perfectly tech-savvy," Jane said. "I can't believe that someone would need to call twice to unstick the enter key."

"Then would you believe I call because I like the sound of your voice?"

Jane would believe that, or she would like to anyway. It would be good for those self-esteem issues that had been plaguing her since her boyfriend dumped her. That and… well the sentiment wasn't one-sided.

"So what is it this time? Enter key again?"

"Space key," he answered. "Damn thing's been a bitch all morning."

Jane covered her mouth with her hand and pulled a straight face for her supervisor. The woman eyeballed her, wrote something down on her clipboard, and carried on to the next terminal. Dodged that bullet again.

"You remember what I told you about removing the enter key and cleaning underneath it?"

He gasped. "You mean you can do that with other keys? You're brilliant."

 _'And you're full of shit.'_

"Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Well, I do have these two movie tickets for tonight, and I only need one. How about you take the other one off my hands? I'd even give you a lift and treat you to dinner afterwards to thank you."

"I think you can find a date on your own," Jane said. "You're so charming after all."

"I can't tell if you really mean that or if you're just being sarcastic."

"Thank you for calling tech support. Please stay on the line for a brief survey."

"No, wait-"

Jane transferred him to the survey, where he would no doubt leave her all five star ratings again. She took a few more calls before her shift ended, and got home in record time. Darcy was in the living room when she walked in, reading a massive law text and bobbing her head to music from her ipod.

"Hey Jane, how was work?"

"Not bad," Jane said, dropping her shoulder bag. "Same old same old."

"Your new boyfriend call?"

Jane rolled her eyes. She really shouldn't have told Darcy about that.

"Bucky's not my boyfriend, and I'm not answering that question," she said.

"So he did. Nice. Did you agree to go out with him this time?"

"Yeah sure, we're getting married over the weekend."

"Cool. I'll buy a dress."

Jane shook her head. She fixed herself a sandwich and flopped down on the couch, grabbing the remote from under Darcy's foot. She flipped through a few channels before settling on a cooking show, which she and Darcy watched in silence for a time.

"Did you say his name is Bucky?" Darcy asked during the commercial.

"I've told you that," said Jane.

"No you haven't," Darcy countered.

"Does it matter?"

"It's just that Steve's got a friend named Bucky. Kinda weird, isn't it?"

Jane shrugged. "I get calls from all over the country, if not the world. There's got to be a million Buckys out there."

Darcy hummed and checked her watch. She set down her books.

"Speaking of which, I'm supposed to meet Steve in half an hour." She grabbed her bag and adjusted her shirt to show off a more satisfactory amount of cleavage. "If someone comes by while I'm gone, it's probably Bucky. He's fixing my laptop for me."

"Your laptop broke?" Jane asked. "Why didn't you tell me? I would've fixed it."

"I was going to, but then you came home from work, dropped down on the bed, and slept for ten hours straight. Figured you were busy."

She skipped out the door, off to meet her new boyfriend in whatever date location they'd chosen this week. Jane didn't expect her back until late tomorrow, so she got comfortable with her feet up on the armrest. She let Darcy's books slide to the floor and turned the volume up.

A knock on the door came in the middle of a science fiction movie she'd been mentally taking apart. Just when she was getting comfortable. Jane muted the TV and forced herself to get up.

"Hey Darcy, you home? I got your laptop. It was just some dust that needed blowing out. No big deal."

Jane froze mid-step. She stared at the door with bugged out eyes, letting his voice replay in her head. She knew that voice. She'd know it anywhere.

It made no sense. It was completely impossible. Unless Darcy had known all along and given him her badge number as part of an elaborate prank, but no. Darcy was nuts, but not _that_ nuts. She wouldn't try to mess with Jane's head like this. So it had to be a coincidence. The most striking and insane coincidence of Jane Foster's life.

She approached the door like a knight would approach a sleeping dragon. Her hand found the knob and turned it slowly. She prayed that she was not about to reveal a face to go with that ungodly sexy voice…

"Oh, hi," he said cheerfully. "You must be Darcy's roommate. She told me you might be here."

And praying got her nowhere. He was like GQ model with that face and that body.

"Got her laptop ready." He held it out to her. "It was a simple fix, so she doesn't have to pay me."

Jane took it. She fingered the handle and bit her lip, a funny sort of peace washing over her.

"I hope you remembered to unstick the enter key, Bucky."

If she never saw him again in her life or if she married and lived with him for fifty years, Jane was never going to forget the look on his face right at that moment.

"Uh… I… you..."

So much for his suave personality. Actually, he was kind of adorable this way.

"Thank you for calling tech support," Jane said, swinging the door closed.

She couldn't wait to talk to him again tomorrow.


	28. 2046

**A/N: Requested by omnicat.  
**

* * *

Jane landed on her ass, as embarrassing as it was to admit. Especially since her unwitting companion was upright, on his feet, with an almost catlike grace and seemingly no injuries despite cracking the cement on impact. Not that surprising, given his status as a super soldier, but it didn't make Jane feel any less inadequate that he could just dust himself off and walk like they hadn't just fallen from a portal in the sky.

Said portal had yet to close behind them. Jane watched it swirl, neon colors like a sign in a store window. Bursts of lightning crackled and smoked in the air, but still the portal remained, a gaping maw in the sky unaffected by wind or the garbage lifted from the ground and sucked into a whirlwind.

"What is going on?" Jane screamed over the roar of thunder.

"I was going to ask you the same question!"

Bucky grabbed her and pulled her away from the road. In the distance was a city, and Jane could see that whatever storm they'd been caught in got worse the closer one got to it. There was some kind of glowing blue light atop the tallest building. That must have been the source of this bizarre weather phenomenon. Jane would've liked to study it for a few more seconds, but Bucky had found a small crevice in the dirt leading to an air pocket. He squeezed himself in after Jane, pushing her against the dirt wall and keeping the opening covered with his body. Jane tried to look over his shoulder, only to get forced back down. She huffed. When did he become her bodyguard?

"When we fell into that hole you made," he said when she asked. "Where the hell are we anyway?"

"If I knew, I'd have figured out a way to get us back already."

"Why can't we just go the way we came?" Bucky asked. "It's still there. Hasn't moved or changed or anything."

"Yeah, but it's also thirty feet above us," Jane said. "Unless that serum gave you the power of flight, I don't know how we're going to reach it."

She checked her phone one more time, pulling up the tracker feature she'd developed herself. It was supposed to be for recording her progress on the bifrost project. It might've also worked to control that portal if Jane could get the stupid thing working.

"Dammit. No internet connection out here," she hissed.

"Guess we'll have to do it the old fashioned way," Bucky said.

"And what would that be?"

"You get on my shoulders and I stand up really straight."

Jane gawked at him. A humorless laugh escaped her. This was why she liked it when Bucky visited her lab.

"No offense, but not only is that a terrible plan, it's not even remotely feasible. You're a big guy, but you cannot stretch yourself thirty feet up."

"Okay, well what if we found something big that we could stand on? Like a rock or something?"

"We'd have to push it under the portal, possibly stack one on top of the other…"

"You mean, I'd have to," said Bucky.

Jane would've liked to argue that point, but her limbs felt like jelly and she had barely a hint of muscle on her anyway.

A crash near their hiding place shook the earth. Jane lost her footing, but Bucky grabbed her in time to keep her upright. She pushed past him to have a look outside, but she could hardly see a thing through a blanket of grey smoke. She would think something was on fire, but the air wasn't hot and she couldn't smell burning. A few shadows slowly came into focus, their shapes as of yet unintelligible, except for that there were at least four of them, and one was noticeably smaller than the rest.

"Do you see that?"

Jane tried to crawl over Bucky to get a better look, but since that involved putting herself out in the open while the storm was still raging, Bucky forced her behind him.

"You're going to get yourself killed!" He shouted at her.

"But don't you see it? Right over there. It looks like someone is-"

A second crash sent the one small shadow flying out of the smoke. Jane could now see that it was a man, tall and powerfully built, dressed in black with a large, futuristic gun in his hand. He slammed into the dirt with what looked like enough force to break a few bones. He was up and running within a millisecond, so maybe Jane's calculations were off on that. The man shot one of his attackers- they looked sort of like a mix between a lizard and an octopus- blowing it's head clean off with an exploding bullet.

He took a direct hit from another one that came at him from the side. He allowed it to lift him in the air and jammed a knife into it's neck. With a growl, he severed the head almost completely and leaped off of it as it swayed, dead before it hit the ground. The man then moved to dodge a blow from the final creature, losing his gun in the process. It hardly phased him as he engaged it in hand to hand combat. The thing had arms wider than Jane was tall, and muscles on its muscles. It was too slow, though. All that bulk hindered as much, if not more, than it helped. The man's speed was overwhelming, far greater than the creature could handle. He sunk his fist into the creature's abdomen. It doubled over, giving the man room to hop up on its back and grip its massive head in his hands.

Jane shut her eyes, but she was too late to miss the monster's head twisting around. She would've heard the snapping of bones regardless. Now that the wind was dying down, both the monster's death rattle and the victorious man's labored breathing were obvious. Jane studied him. It was hard to get a glimpse of his face from this angle.

"Maybe we should see if he's all right," she said.

Bucky had been silent and motionless throughout the entire battle. Now he stared pensively at the man in black dropping down on a boulder to rest. He vaulted out of the hole, leaving Jane to scramble after him. His pace was such that Jane took three steps to every one if his.

"Excuse me," Bucky said. "Sorry to bother you, but my friend and I have gotten ourselves a bit turned around, and we're not sure where we are right now."

"In the middle of nowhere basically," said the man. "And in the middle of a firefight. You should probably go duck for co… uh…"

The man had looked up. He had a handsome face, clean shaven with short, shaggy hair hanging over his eyes. Said eyes were brown and bulging out of his skull, sort of like how everyone said Jane's did whenever she narrowly missed out on a breakthrough in her research.

"Uh…" Jane didn't think someone who just effortlessly snapped a monster's neck should look like they would scream at the sight of a mouse, but there it was.

"What's the matter?" Bucky asked. "Cat got your tongue?"

"I… no." The man cleared his throat. "I'm just… surprised. Because there shouldn't be anyone out here right now. So uh… how'd you get here?"

Bucky and Jane pointed at the portal. It swirled and sparked and spun in an infinite loop, a tear in the fabric of reality that seemed more like a snag in retrospect.

"O...kay…" The man said.

"Look, my name's James Barnes, and this is my friend, Dr. Foster. We're not sure where we are right now, but we came here through that portal, and if there is anyway you could help us get up there so we can get home, we'd appreciate it."

"And if you could tell us what the hell you were just fighting?" Jane added.

"Sure," said the man, a little too quickly. "I mean… that was nothing. Just another nutjob with a weather machine something or other and alien slaves. But I can definitely help you get back in that portal, no problem."

Jane sighed with relief. "That would be great. Thank you so much, Mr…?"

"Er- Jacob," he said awkwardly, and for a moment there, it looked like he wasn't going to tell them at all.

"Jacob. That's a nice name."

"Yeah, my mom picked it out…"

Jacob withdrew a glowing, remote like object from his pocket. He typed in a few numbers, and then a tiny, glowing ball issued forth, bouncing around in the air before expanding outwards into a paper thin disk. It sunk to the ground, flattening the grass into the shape of a circle.

"Okay, one at a time. Hop on."

Jane took a step. Bucky held her back.

"Wait a second. What the hell is that thing?"

"New technology," Jacob answered. "Just developed by Stark Industries."

"I live two floors away from Tony Stark," said Bucky. "I have to go to group therapy with him twice a week because I was forced to murder his parents. I think I would know if he was developing something like that."

"Bucky, it doesn't matter," Jane hissed at him. "Look, it's solid."

She poked the disk with her foot. It made a metallic clanging sound like someone had rapped their knuckles on a car door. To further prove her point, Jane stepped on top of the disk and let it carry her a foot off the ground, slowly lifting her up towards the portal.

"This is incredible!" She gushed. "Oh my god, the future is going to be amazing if this is the kind of thing you have."

"It's okay, I guess," Jacob shrugged.

"Hang on, did you just say the future?" Bucky narrowed his eyes at her. "As in… we're in the future right now."

Jane rolled her eyes. "Come on, Bucky. We would've known if there was an attack going on today because you guys would've been called to deal with it. That's Manhattan right there, we're just outside city limits. And that's before we get into the advanced technology. The only explanation possible is that we're in the future."

Bucky shook his head, hand up like he didn't know if he should smack himself or someone else.

"Okay, then I hate the future. I hate it. Why can't I just stay in one time period. Just one?"

"You can figure that out after you get back," said Jacob. He had summoned a second disk that sat at Bucky's feet like a noble steed waiting to be mounted. "Go ahead."

Bucky eyed him. "I'm still not sure about this."

"For Christ's sake, Dad- DUDE! Dude. Dude is what I meant."

The disk moved slowly, and Jane was still low enough to see Bucky study Jacob intently, looking for any sort of weak point in his defenses. It was kind of just what he did, in that part of him that would never truly heal from his time with HYDRA. Jane had had only a month so far to get used to it, and she was still cowed by him more often than not. Strange then, that Jacob seemed completely unaffected by Bucky's icy stare. Almost like he'd seen it a hundred times before.

"Look, just step up onto it, like she did. I promise it'll be fine."

"I don't take promises from strangers," Bucky said. He acquiesced a moment later regardless, likely knowing that they really didn't have any other options.

"I can't believe this happened," Jane muttered to herself. She was at least a third of the way up now. "I try to make a bridge to Asgard, and this is what I get? Back to the drawing board, I guess."

"I'm sorry, you literally invented time travel, something even Stark thought was impossible, and you're disappointed?"

"Look around you, Bucky. Does this look like Asgard to you? No, it's not. It's just another version of earth. That's not what I wanted."

"Oh my god…" Bucky looked like he wanted to hurl himself off the disk and end it all.

"Good luck out there," Jacob shouted beneath them. "You two make a great couple, and if you ever have a kid and that kid one day spills orange juice all over a sensitive computer module, go easy on him. I'm sure he really didn't mean it."

They disappeared through the portal, back to their time and place. The portal closed shortly after; Jacob assumed they had turned the damn thing off right away, and thank god for that. Since no crazy cosmic paradoxical crap happened in the ensuring seconds, he concluded that everything was fine and there was no threat to his life or existence.

He whipped out his phone, turning away from the damaged city his teammates were in the process of cleaning up..

"Hello?" said the voice on the other end after two rings.

"DAD! WHAT THE HELL?"

Bucky laughed, and Jacob could hear him shouting. "Hey Janie! Get over here. I was right. Today _was_ the day we went to the future and met Jacob."

It was about that time Jacob Barnes realized his entire family was insane.


	29. First Date

**A/N: Requested by Lark-Cale. This story is set in the same universe as 'Ever I Saw' and 'First Kiss'.  
**

* * *

Jane got a call from Steve in the middle of an uneventful work day. If it had been anyone else, she would have sent it straight to voicemail, and maybe listened to it a day or two later if her mailbox was full. All of her important messages went to her email. Other than Steve, the only people who regularly rang her was her mom and the telemarketers. Since it was Steve, she answered on the second ring.

They went through the motions of 'hellos' and 'how are yous', made a bit of small talk about Jane's new data and the nice older lady Steve had assisted during his morning run, and then finally got to the part she'd had been waiting for.

"There's this new sushi restaurant Buck and I found the other day. Their nigiri is delicious. We were heading over there again tonight, and I was just wondering if you wanted to come with us? If you like sushi, that is."

Jane was pretty ambivalent to sushi, and most kinds of seafood for that matter. This wasn't about the food, though. She knew that, and she knew that Steve knew she knew that.

"I'd love to," she said. "What time?"

An hour later, she was entering a small, but chic Asian style restaurant ten blocks away from the tower. It wasn't quite packed on a Wednesday night, but enough patrons populated the tables that she had to stand on her tiptoes to find a hint of blonde or longish brown hair. She spotted the latter at the bar. Bucky was alone with two empty stools on either side of him. He had a glass of water near his hand that looked untouched. His head was slightly bent, like he was deep in thought and unaware of his surroundings, but he looked up at the sound of his name.

"Hey," he said. "Good to see you."

"You too," said Jane, sliding onto the stool next to him. "Sorry I've been so busy lately."

"Nah, I haven't had much free time either."

She looked around, but she couldn't see Steve anywhere. That didn't set off red flags; he could've been in the bathroom or outside taking a call or any number of places. A waitress came by and took down Jane's drink order She returned with it moments later as Jane picked up her menu and read through the long list of sushi rolls and sashimi plates.

"So was Darcy busy tonight?" Bucky asked.

"Huh?" Jane said. "I don't know. Tonight's her night off, why?"

Bucky shrugged. "Just wondering why she isn't here yet."

"Oh, did Steve invite her, too?"

"Steve? Steve's in DC for the week."

"DC?" Jane's brow scrunched together. "But he called me three hours ago and said you guys were coming here tonight. He said you've been here before."

"I've never eaten here in my life, but Darcy told me that you and her come here every week. Is that not true?"

"Definitely not. I didn't even know this place existed before today." Jane shook her head as a laugh built in the back of her throat. "Bucky, I think we've been set up."

He blinked. "Set up? You mean… like on a date?"

She should've known this would happen. Darcy had been nudging her about it for weeks, ever since the birthday cake incident. Every so often, she'd start into these long tangents about how super cool Bucky was and how his old fashioned sensibilities made him a perfect gentlemen, or how noticeable it was that he was eating proper foods and gaining weight in all the right places. That she hadn't tried anything like this earlier was the only shocker. That, and the fact that she managed to talk Steve into going along with it.

Unless this had been _his_ idea. Jane could not in good conscience rule out that possibility.

 _'…then again, maybe it isn't a bad thing,'_ Jane thought as she looked in Bucky's bright blue eyes and returned the sheepish grin he gave her.

"Sorry about this," he said. "Steve's an idiot. He's been bugging me to ask you out for months, and I guess he got tired of waiting."

"I know what that's like, believe me," Jane said. "I swear, tomorrow, I'm making Darcy reorganize all my flies AND oversee the system updates. That'll show her."

Bucky chuckled. The sound sent heat shooting down Jane's stomach and made her toes curl.

"Well, since we're already here, might as well make the most of it. As long as you don't mind."

"Not at all, Mr. Barnes." Jane grinned. Her hand came to rest on top of his. "Next time though, let's pick the place ourselves."


	30. Black Market Sale

**A/N: This was an anonymous request.  
**

* * *

 _'What would your mother think if she knew you were out here, Jane?'_

She dodged a pair of men staggering into the street out of a broken down building with strobe lights flashing through the windows. Pulsing electronic 'music' ripped Jane's eardrums to shreds and made her chest pound like a massive fist repeatedly striking her. The two men shrieked in high pitched voices, so high on whatever they'd been given that they didn't care who or what was in their path. They knocked one woman in thick makeup to the ground, and her irate boyfriend whipped out a gun, to which the men could only laugh.

Jane picked up the pace, running with her head down and under her hood. She crossed onto the next block and allowed herself to slow to a fast walk. She hadn't heard any gunshots yet, but in this part of town, she wouldn't hold her breath for a peaceful resolution.

 _'Just get what you need and go, Jane,'_ she said to herself, taking deep breaths through her nose. _'Get what you need and go.'_

A slip of yellow paper was fisted in one hand that she kept in her pocket. The other was wrapped around a can of pepper spray. A meager defense, but she had a history of almost dropping knives on her foot and guns terrified her. She wore baggy clothes and no makeup, with her hair tucked into her jacket. Hopefully, she'd blend in with the drab gray backdrop and no one would look twice at her.

She checked the paper as she rounded a corner. She squinted under the dying streetlamp to read the address. Scribbled in shorthand, and not her own handwriting, it was a wonder that she'd even made it this far. She checked the street sign. Assuming that was an S and not just a really loopy L, she was only a few doors away from her destination. Jane followed the numbers etched over the doors. Some of them had the brass plates missing, and she could only go by the rusty stains they left behind. Even without them, the electronics store was easy to pick out. Glowing brighter than that club, it hummed with energy that crawled up through Jane's feet all the way to her skull.

Her teeth were chattering by the time she was at the door. A bell rang when she opened it, almost like this was a dainty tea shop run by someone's grandmother, instead of a place she was technically committing a felony misdemeanor just knowing about.

There as a man behind the counter, tall with a beer belly and thinning black hair. His shirt was open, revealing a mass of chest hair. A sour odor hit Jane as she approached him, but she managed not to make too much of a face.

"Welcome to Rick's electronic's," he said in a raspy voice. "I'm Rick. What can I do for you?"

She couldn't see anyone else around, either outside or in the store. Beneath the humming was static from an old radio. Voices came through at irregular intervals, spitting out random numbers in heavily accented English. Though it wasn't the most out of date gadget in sight, it was the only thing she could make out as a functional device, and not just the parts of one. The shelves were lined with car parts and computer motherboards. The 'five dollar' bin was full of what appeared to be the guts of cell phones and beepers. SIM cards on display next to the register boasted having belonged to famous celebrities. Someone had left their receipt sticking out of the printer. Jane took it and fished a pen out of her pocket.

"I need one of these," she said, scribbling down the name and model number. "If at all possible and as soon as you can."

The man, Rick, snorted as he read it. "You must be new around here. I got five of these in the back just waiting to be sold."

He walked into the back room, leaving Jane with an invitation to have a look around and see if anything else caught her eye. She browsed up and down the aisles just to give herself something to do. The only thing she wanted now was to get what she needed and run home without stopping. She kept to the back where the humming was less abrasive. The radio played on, but metal clanking drowned it out. Little taps like fingers drumming. Jane followed the sound to the corner of the shop, where broken car doors and metal slabs were propped up around a large, rusty cage. A cage that moved.

She checked that Rick was still in the back room and pushed a car door aside to peek in. There was a massive black shape huddled inside. It didn't move much, but shied away from the light. Two arms covered a head of messy hair. Two legs were pulled up to rest under a chin. The man made not a sound, even as he looked up with glassy blue eyes. Sightlessly he gazed back at Jane, a tiny flicker like recognition dying as fast as it appeared.

"Hello," she said softly.

He didn't answer. Maybe he couldn't. Fingers brushed the bars and his eyes took on a darker shade.

"I see you've found my newest product."

Rick walked around her to lean on the cage, tapping it twice with his knuckle. The man inside recoiled and curled up on the opposite end, like a wounded, frightened animal.

"Product?"

"Just got him in," Rick said proudly. "Cost me a bundle, but with what he can do, I bet I can make a killing off of him."

"You sell people here," Jane said, her face and voice betraying nothing.

"Hey now, don't make me sound like a garden variety criminal," Rick laughed. "This guy here is barely what you'd call human. He's one of them experiments those HYDRA guys were running. You know, that terrorist group from the war."

Jane nodded. "My husband was a soldier. Then he went missing."

Rick either didn't hear her or was too deep into his sales pitch.

"This guy's been enhanced with something called a super serum. He's as strong as ten men, can outrun cars. Oh, and the best part is that his arm got messed up during the procedure, so…"

He reached into the cage, coaxing the man forward with fingers digging into his neck. Mechanical sounds were quickly explained by the robotic arm built into his shoulder. It moved as fluidly as a normal arm would. Metal fingers held on to the bars to keep him upright. His sad eyes were all the prevented Jane from screaming, and she swallowed her horror back..

"Impressive," she said. "So you think you can sell him?"

"If that's an offer, we'll have to go somewhere else to discuss it."

"Just a question," Jane answered. "I have a feeling he'd be a bit out of my price range anyway."

"Wouldn't be surprised," Rick said. "I figure I can sell him off as a bodyguard. He's been trained in all kind of fighting styles and he can shoot a gun like a pro. Least that's what I've been told."

"He doesn't seem very threatening," Jane observed. The man had slinked back into the shadows out of sight, his head buried between his knees and covered by hair.

"That's just the drugs," Rick said. "You have to keep him doped up so he's nice and docile. Otherwise, his brain'll repair itself, and then he'd be no good to anyone. Feed him three times a day, and he's dead to the world. Speaking of which, about time he had his dinner."

He opened a mini-fridge next to the cage that Jane hadn't noticed before. Inside was a bottle of milk and a bowl of coagulating porridge that he mixed a packet of white powder into. He added a drop of milk to moisten it up and laid it out in front of the cage.

"Come on, boy, time to eat," he said in a baby voice, rapping on the bars. "Be a good boy and don't leave any scraps behind. Come on now… ah, he'll eat. He always does. Leave him to it."

Jane followed him to the front of the store, where the piece she had requested waited next to the register. Jane examined it with the precision of a proper scientist and pursed her lips.

"You said you had more of these," she said. "Mind if I see another one? Just so I can compare them. Make sure I'm getting what I need."

"Sure thing," he said, and he hauled off into the back room, whistling a tune as he went. More confidant than any man in his position had any right to be.

Jane cast a glance at the cage, still uncovered with the full porridge bowl in reach for the man to pick at. One hand reached out to prod it, the human hand. Jane took a deep breath, fighting back tears and steeling herself for what she was about to do.

Five minutes later, Rick came back with the second piece. And a third one as well, just because he was that good of a businessman.

"Hope nothing and no one gave you trouble while you were waiting," he said.

"Not at all," Jane said. "In fact, I think he's done with his food."

The porridge bowl sat empty and upturned with a number of crumbs surrounding it. The man inside the cage could not be seen, but he was as silent as ever, lost under the influence of opium. Rick took Jane's payment for the piece and was just getting out the broom when Jane saw herself out.

"Thank you for shopping at Rick's!"

Jane smiled at left.

"No," she said to herself half a block away, her purse swishing heavily, filled to the brim with the porridge. "Thank _you_."

* * *

She watched the news the next day, flipping through channels that cared only about the recent celebrity breakup and the elections. Turning to a local channel, she sat through a PSA about drug usage among teenagers until finally- finally- the report she wanted to see came on.

 _'And we're getting word that the attack happened late last night. It's unknown how the perpetrator got into the building, but there is currently only one reported fatality. Shop owner Richard Marsh was found dead at the scene of apparent blunt force trauma to the head. Police say there were signs of a struggle, but so far have no leads…'_

All night long, Jane had told herself that he deserved it. Whether he wanted to believe it or not, what that man was doing was wrong. It was beyond wrong. It was sick and disgusting to treat another human being like that; like a dog. She told herself that whatever happened to him happened. It wasn't on her and it wasn't on him either. He'd been held captive, so it was self-defense.

The only question now was would he be in his right mind enough to find his way home. The first time someone told her they'd seen Bucky being shipped in a cage, delivered to a man selling illegal electronics because technically, he was an electronic now, she hadn't dared believe it. The condolence letter from the army was still unopened on the coffee table. She'd been afraid to believe it, because the rational in her knew it could only lead to disappointment.

Yesterday, she saw it for herself. What he had become. What those bastards had done to him.

Rick said he was barely human now, but he was wrong. He had to be. That was still her Bucky in there. He had to remember her, the love that they'd shared.

He had to.

A window broke in her bedroom, and Jane rushed without thinking out of the living room. She dropped her morning coffee. The mug shattered and spilled hot liquid everywhere, but Jane saw and heard none of it. Nothing mattered to her but the male grunting and the heavy footsteps that matched her own.

She threw open her door, and there he was. He was dirty, he was half naked, he was the tiniest bit lopsided thanks to the metal arm, and he was beautiful. His fists were clenched and his feet bare. Streaks of dirt stained his skin, but she could see no cuts or bruises. She wondered if he could even get those anymore.

"Jane," he rasped, and smiled like he'd only just remembered how to do it.

A happy cry erupted from her throat as she threw herself at him. He caught her easily, like her weight was nothing to him. He held her in the air, kissing the life out of her, just like he had the day he went off to basic training with a promise that he would survive and come back to her.

And now he had. For all that he had changed, and she had changed, and for all that their lives were about to change, he had kept his word, and Jane Foster-Barnes could ask for nothing else in the world but this.

Her husband, home from the war at last.


	31. Halloween Decorating

**A/N: Requested by dwyn5002.  
**

* * *

The light up mechanical skull in Jane's hands went off without warning, jerking and unleashing a hideous scratchy laugh that made her drop it back into the box.

"Careful with that thing, it's an antique," Darcy said. "I bought that from a voodoo shop in New Orleans. A witch doctor put ancient curses on it, and if it breaks you'll release evil spirits into the world."

Jane picked it up again and turned it over. "It says 'Made in China'."

"Don't questions the voodoo spirits."

Jane set it down on the mantle next to the decapitated zombie figurine and the dancing Nosferatu display. The latter lit up randomly, but moved sluggishly on dying batteries. She straightened everything out as per Darcy's instructions and went to go get the jack-o-lantern tea lights to string around the door.

"How many more decorations do you need anyway?" She asked after hitting her head on a hanging ghost doll for the fifth time.

"I'm sorry, is this the same Jane who wants to go live in Santa's workshop every December?" Darcy tossed another zombie head out of the box and onto the couch. "Or do you just not like Halloween?"

"I like it fine," she said. "I mean, I guess I liked it more when I was a kid. I haven't really celebrated much lately. Usually, I'm too busy with work."

"Well, not this year," Darcy declared with her hands on her hips. "Know why? Because you have a super sexy boyfriend now, so we need to get you in the right kind of costume to drive him wild."

Just that statement alone left Jane with a sense of foreboding, for whatever Darcy had planned to try and force her into. Knowing her, it would probably count more as underwear than a costume. The last time Jane dressed up, she was eleven, and it had been a white lab coat she got from her father. She'd gone as a scientist, because she figured she'd be one eventually anyway. She told Darcy this the last time the subject of costumes came up, only to get scoffed at for her younger self's lack of creativity.

She grabbed the staple gun off the table and placed the lights over the door frame. Her mind wandered as she worked, and not to research and data like it normally would. Somehow, Darcy and her Halloween frenzy had gotten to her, at least for the moment. She started humming a tune she'd heard long ago in a movie.

"Boys and girls of every age," she sang under her breath, 'wouldn't you like to see something strange…"

"Come with us and you will see, this our town of Halloween!" Darcy sang back at her.

"This is Halloween! This is Halloween!" They sang together.

"Pumpkins scream in the dead of night!"

"This is Halloween! Everybody make a scene!"

They went through the whole song (Jane was surprised that she remembered so many of the lyrics), out of tune but enthusiastic, until they had completely abandoned their decorating to just dance around singing at the top of their lungs.

"Our man Jack is king of the pumpkin patch!"

"Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King NOW!"

Their voices dissolved from discernible words to senseless giggles, and they collapsed on the couch leaning against each other for leverage. Darcy just about crushed her zombie head sitting on it. It rolled onto the floor, landing before a pair of black shoes. The toe of one came up to catch the head. Their owner seemed unsure if he should be staring at it or at the two girls in hysterics.

"If I'm interrupting something, I'll leave," Bucky said, "but Lewis, I swear to god, if you're trying to make Jane as insane as you are, I'm going to kill you."

"You will not," Darcy said. "If you did, Steve would kill you."

"I'm willing to take that risk."

Jane rolled her eyes as she stepped off the couch and threw her arms around Bucky's neck. He only kissed her for a second, much to her disappointment. She'd have to get them somewhere private soon before the moment was completely lost.

"So while you're here, Barnes, what costume do you think Jane should wear for Halloween?" Darcy shoved a few pieces of paper in Bucky's face. Most of them depicted models wearing something almost resembling clothing. "Should it be sexy nurse, sexy maid, sexy ninja, or my personal favorite, Sailor Senshi?"

Jane snatched the pages out of her hands. "Darcy, stop it."

Bucky placed a hand to his chin, muttering to himself as if deep in thought.

"Bucky, don't even think about answering that!"

"You sure?" He asked. "Because I kind of like that last one. You'd look good in a miniskirt."

"Damn right, she would!" Darcy exclaimed.

"You can both keep dreaming," Jane snapped, tossing the now crumpled papers in the trash. "In fact, I think this year, I'll go as a nun. In a habit. How's that sound?"

"Sexy nun costume, right here!" Darcy held up the page.

And that was why Jane couldn't wait for Christmas.


	32. Kids

**A/N: Requested by tallydubh.  
**

* * *

The phone rang in the middle of the night, jarring Bucky out of a lovely dream that involved Jane naked in the bathtub and rubbing chocolate sauce all over herself. Back in the real world, Jane was dry and wearing a pink tank top, underneath which he knew was nothing at all. He'd accept that for now, but he still would've preferred to not be woken up at four in the morning, dream or no dream.

Jane felt around for her cellphone and flicked on the lights when she couldn't find it. If Bucky was in the mood to get his head out from under his pillow, he would've told her it was near the far left corner of her nightstand judging from the direction the ringing came from. Except he was doing his very best to ignore it completely and go back to sleep. Then it mercifully stopped.

"Hey, Darcy," he heard Jane say. "What is it? You know it's four in the morning, right?"

He could barely hear Darcy on the other end. Whatever she was saying, it sounded sarcastic.

"Okay, well, If that's all you wanted to tell me-" Jane paused to let Darcy speak. "What? Oh that's great, Darcy. Congratulations… Yeah, okay, that sounds good. Talk to you later."

"What was that?" Bucky asked. Jane hung up and tossed her phone aside, then sunk back into his waiting arms.

"Darcy's pregnant," she said. "She just took a test."

"Good for her," said Bucky. "Why couldn't she wait until the sun was out to tell you?"

"Do you know Darcy?"

She had him there. Bucky conceded with a hum and snuggled closer to Jane. Her face was smushed into his shoulder, but she didn't try to move. One arm draped over him, reaching down as far as she could to give his ass a squeeze. She couldn't quite make it, but he appreciated the effort. He rewarded her with a kiss on the crown of her head.

"You ever think about that?" she asked.

Bucky frowned. "About what?"

Jane pulled away enough to look him in the eye. "Kids."

"Like… having them?"

Jane nodded.

"You and me?"

"No, me and Steve," she said.

"Jane," Bucky said in a warning tone. "You know Steve is my best friend in the world, and I'd hate to have to kill him."

She giggled and kissed the side of his mouth. "You didn't answer my question."

Bucky pursed his lips. There really wasn't anything to think about, because the truth was that yes, he had thought about it. He'd thought about it many times since the two of them were married, especially after Stark and Pepper had their kids last year. Before enlisting in the military, he'd always assumed he'd one day meet the girl of his dreams, get married, and be settled down with a couple of kids by the time he was forty. Just like his father and his grandfather.

It had taken him seventy traumatic years to find the right girl for him, but he chose not to think about that unless it was time for another therapy session.

"I guess so," he said lightly. "I mean… yeah, I've thought about it. I didn't know you were thinking about it."

"I wasn't," she admitted, "at least, not at first. I always figured I'd be too busy with work to ever have kids, but now that I have all this extra money and employees and you… I mean, it would be nice to have a cute little blue eyed baby around here."

Bucky chuckled. "I think you just jinxed it, doll. Our kid is going to have your eyes now instead."

And he was just fine with that. He showed it by kissing her eyelids and then moving to claim her lips. Things quickly grew heated as he reached beneath her shirt to cup one perky breast in his hand.

"I'm not ready now," she said. "Jesus, we only just started talking about kids two minutes ago."

"Who says it needs to be now?" he asked, continuing his ministrations. "You're still on the pill, so let's call this… practice."

"Practice," Jane moaned into his mouth. "Practice sounds good."

And it was very good indeed.


	33. Dog On It

**A/N: Requested by miss-moonstone. There is a brief scene of attempted assault, so be warned.  
**

* * *

Jane found the dog on a rainy night after some jackass in a Ferrari sped through a puddle and drenched him. He didn't seem bothered, shaking off the water before moving on. It struck Jane at the core of her being, this poor thing abandoned, all on his own. He wasn't malnourished or injured. That meant he probably got turned out onto the street by his former owners. It might've been like in the old cartoons where they drove him out into the countryside, let him out, and then drove away.

Whether or not it was true, there was just something about this dog. One look at him and the cat lover in Jane flew right out the window.

So she brought him home. He was surprisingly keen on following her, barking and rushing straight at her the second she was in view. Jane was perturbed by his friendliness but chalked it up to typical canine behavior. Everyone always said that where a cat would treat you like a slave, dogs would love you like you were the center of the universe, and it appeared that was true.

He didn't have a collar, so while he gnawed on a hunk of raw meat in the kitchen, Jane thought about something to call him.

"How about… Spike?"

The dog looked at her.

"Spot?"

He made a sound that Jane could almost mistake for an 'Are you kidding me?'

"Well excuse me," she said. "I've never been good with names."

Setting it aside for now, she flipped on the TV. Tonight was a vacation night for her, as was the rest of the weekend. After speaking at five scientific conventions in a row, even Jane knew she needed a break. She'd cleared her schedule until Monday, and she was going to spend the next three days enjoying some quiet alone time. Just her and this couch. Or her, this couch, and her new pet.

She switched to the news. The latest story involved the Avengers fighting that woman, Amora. Jane didn't know much about her except that she and Thor had a thing a long time ago, and she wasn't over it. Thor himself had wanted to protect her in case Amora hadn't heard they weren't an item anymore, but Jane hadn't shared his fears. He still had Steve post at least a dozen SHIELD agents around the building just to be safe. He probably thought she hadn't noticed them, but she had.

According to the report, Amora had escaped custody again, and in the process of trying to apprehend her, one new member of the team had disappeared without a trace.

"Barnes' last known location was on the corner of 33rd street. He was seen chasing after the perpetrator, Amora the Enchantress, when both of them vanished in a cloud of smoke. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Barnes is advised to-"

The dog had seemed especially interested in this story, pawing the screen and whining. Jane didn't know what to make of it (nothing in the articles she was reading about his breed mentioned anything about what kind of TV they preferred), so she just laughed.

"Yeah, he's a handsome one," she said. The dog's head whipped around and he trotted closer to her. "I've never really spoken to him, but I see him around the tower all the time. I guess you could say I have a bit of a crush. People think he's scary because of his past, but he just seems like the sweetest guy in the world."

Jane went off into her fantasy for a moment, of Bucky Barnes wrapping his powerful arms around her like he would never let go, kissing her to mark her as his. She wasn't afraid to admit that she'd read one or two romance novels in her life, and that may have colored her views on love. Probably why she had so many failed relationships under her belt.

"I'm sure he's fine," she said, changing to a new station. "He's tough, so wherever he is now, he's got to be surviving."

The dog dropped to the floor and his tail stopped wagging.

* * *

"Hey there, sweetie!"

Jane rolled her eyes as she recognized the harsh sounding voice. "Morning Marv. I'm kind of busy right now."

"You're always busy," the large, balding man said. Marv lived two floors below Jane. He was three times her size and gave her bad vibes from the day she met him. She kept her distance as much as she could, but it didn't help that he always seemed to be seeking her out. "You should come to my place some time. We'll have a party."

The dog's growling made him take a step back. He bared his teeth as if preparing to attack.

"This is my new dog," Jane said conversationally.

"He's cute," Marv said, stepping back.

"He's a Rhodesian Ridgeback. They're very protective of their owners, and historically, they were used to hunt lions."

While Marv processed all of that, Jane lead the dog inside and locked the door. She dropped all her newly purchased dog stuff on the kitchen table and flopped down on the couch. She left room for him to jump up, but he just sat with his head in her lap, staring up at her with soulful black eyes.

"You are a very smart dog," she said, petting him. "And cute… and you still need a name, don't you?"

Her TV was on and another news report about Bucky Barnes was running. Today was day two since he'd gone missing, and it looked like Steve was orchestrating a citywide search for him. Amora was still on the loose, but it seemed Steve was leaving that one to Tony and the others. With the TV on mute, Jane couldn't hear his interview, but once again, her new friend was enthralled.

"Hmm… how about I call you Steve?"

The dog barked at her, and it didn't sound like a happy bark.

"You're right. That's not a good dog name. How about… Bucky?"

God, she was bad at naming. If she ever had kids, they'd probably all be Jane Jr.. He seemed to approve, though, as he leapt up to lick her face.

"Woah, okay, down boy," she laughed. "Bucky it is then."

* * *

The next day, Jane took Bucky for a walk. He seemed to enjoy it, and she couldn't blame him. Her apartment was stuffy on the best of days. Thank goodness it was only temporary until she could officially move into the Tower. She'd talked to Bucky all night about her work and Tony offering her an obscene amount of money if she'd come and be one of his 'Science Buddies.' She didn't know exactly what that entailed, but Dr. Bruce Banner was also one, and the three of them would get matching shirts. It would be like their own little club that nobody else could join.

"I think he might be just kidding about that," she told him while pouring kibble into his bowl. "But then again, it is Tony Stark. You never know for sure."

Bucky barked, as if in agreement, and Jane wouldn't be surprised if he really did. Over the last three days, she'd found that her dog was exceptionally intelligent. He could sit and roll over and play dead. He could beg and shake hands. He barked on command and he even got into bed with her at night, seeming to instinctively know that she needed company.

"You know," she told him late Sunday night, "I wish you were human. I wish you were the real Bucky. Not that I don't love you as you are, but I'm tired of being alone."

He put his head in her lap, and she was comforted by the warmth of his body. She rubbed his back, making his tail wag furiously.

"I wish you could talk," Jane said. She smiled. "I wish I had one of those collars from that Pixar movie, so I could just translate your thoughts into speech. I feel like you'd have more to talk about than just squirrels."

Jane rested back on a pile of pillows. Bucky lifted his head to lick her ear and her cheek. He placed his paw on top of her hand, and settled down beside her, his tail thumping on the bed like he'd never been happier in his life than he was right now.

"You're a good dog," Jane said, as her eyes grew heavy and she slipped off into darkness.

* * *

Jane snapped awake at the sharp screech of her ringtone. She searched for the phone and found nothing before remembering that she'd left it in the kitchen. Grumbling, she got out of bed, careful not to disturb Bucky. The dog slumbered on and Jane left him to it. She turned on the hall light and found her phone dancing around her table demanding that she pick it up. She did, and Tony's photo flashed over her call ID.

"Jane! Where were you?" Tony asked the second she picked up.

"Sleeping," Jane snapped. "What the hell are you waking me up for?"

"Not to have to deal with Ms. Crankypants, that's for sure," said Tony. "But listen, we found Amora."

 _That_ woke Jane up.

"You did?"

"Yes! And you're not going to believe what she told us."

"You found Barnes?"

"Well no, but we know why we haven't. We've been searching for him all wrong."

"What does that mean?" As Jane spoke, she could hear some kind of banging out in the hall.

"Turns out, when Barnes started chasing her, she was desperate to get away, so she rattled off the first spell she could think of, and bam! Goodbye Bucky, hello Fido."

That noise behind her door was getting louder. It sounded like a man screaming curses. Jane pressed the phone into her ear to drown it out.

"What are you saying?"

"What do you think I'm saying? Barnes is a dog. We found video surveillance of Old Yeller leaving the scene. He's some kind of Rhodesian whatever."

"Rhodesian Ridgeback?" Jane said weakly.

"Yeah, that sounds right. Anyway, Amora told us the spell will wear off on its own three days after she cast it, so Barnes should be back on two legs and on our radar in another few minutes. I was hoping you could-"

The door flew off its hinges. Jane screamed and dropped the phone. She had no idea if that canceled out the call, but she couldn't hear Tony's voice, or anything other than Marv's heavy breathing as his unfocused eyes looked down on her.

"There you are," he slurred. "I been lookin' fer ya."

"M-Marv," Jane said. "This isn't your apartment. Go home."

"No way. Why don' you ever wanna talk ta me? I try and I try and you just blow me off, you stupid bitch!"

He lunged at her, grabbing her by the hair. Jane screamed, and he threw her into the wall. The blow knocked the wind out of her and left her momentarily disoriented.

"I'm gonna git what I want," Marv said, lumbering towards her. "You're gonna give it whether you like it or not."

A loud series of barks tore through the air, and then something big and brown flew at Marv, sending him back. He cried out in rage as Bucky tore at his face, teeth gnashing and claws flying. Marv gave a roar as he threw the dog across the room, where he fell behind the couch and whimpered in pain. Marv wasn't finished, though. He stalked over and sunk his foot into Bucky's stomach again and again.

"Yeah!" He shouted. "How do you like that, you fucking mutt!"

"Marv, no! Leave him alone!"

Jane beat Marv on the back with her small fists. That only served to further agitate him, but he did forget about Bucky and turn his attentions back to her. Jane fought as hard as she could, but he easily dragged her into the bedroom.

"Gonna get what I want," he said, grinning to show off long, yellowing teeth. The sight nearly made Jane lose her lunch.

"Please Marv," she begged, curling up in the corner.

"Please nothing," Marv spat, approaching the bed. His eyes combed over her body; her tank top and short pajama pants. She could smell the putrid stench of alcohol on his breath as he hovered over her.

A bright blue light flared up in Jane's living room. They could see it through the open door. It flickered died as suddenly as it came, but the sight of it alone seemed to sober Marv up just enough to note the strangeness of it.

"What the fuck was that?" He staggered into the living room. "Hey, dog. You still alive in there? If you are, that's okay. I've got some nice sharp new friends for you back at my- uh… ah!"

The next time Jane saw his face, Marv was white as a sheet and sweaty, as a tall, very human, and very pissed off Bucky Barnes stood over him. Pure hate shone in his eyes, the kind that would make even the most hardened HYDRA operative quake in his boots. In the next few seconds, Bucky's metal hand was around Marv's neck and he was holding him a foot off the ground. Then with a grunt, he slammed Marv's face into the wall hard enough to leave a hole. Marv fell limp, and Bucky left him there, the rage leaving him in an instant as Jane got to her feet.

"Are you all right?" he asked, looking her over for scratches or bruises, but aside from some fingermarks on her arms, there was nothing to be found.

"I'm okay," Jane said as he fussed over her. "Really, I'm fine. Just a little shaken."

That was enough for Bucky to go back and slam Marv one more time into the wall. Jane would've liked to point out that those dents would come out of her deposit, but given the situation, a few hundred dollars lost seemed like a small price to pay. And she could always make Tony cover it.

"Just so we're clear," she said, "you were my dog, right?"

Bucky gave her a sheepish look. "I uh… yeah. That was me. I'm sorry…"

"Don't be," Jane said, fighting to keep her eyes on his face and not go lower. "Uh… I don't know if you've noticed, but you're a little…"

She motioned at his body. He glanced down in confusion, only to turn bright red all over.

"Oh my god," he grabbed a pillow from her bed to cover himself. "I am so sorry. I didn't even realize."

He went into the bathroom and threw open the closet door, coming back with her favorite beach towel wrapped around his waist. This, of course, left his upper body exposed, but Jane wasn't about to complain.

"I guess this means we won't be going on that walk tomorrow," Jane said.

"I know I keep saying it," Bucky hung his head, "but I really am sorry. I can't say I loved being a dog, but I did love getting to know you."

Jane smiled so wide it made her face hurt. "I think I'll like you a lot more as a man than a dog anyway." She took him by the hand. "Now, do I get to thank my hero for saving me?"

She didn't wait for a response, just launched herself into his arms and crushed her lips to his. He recovered nicely from the initial shock, kissing her back with such intensity that it was a good thing he was already holding her up. Otherwise, she would've swooned.

That was how the Avengers and a swarm of SHIELD agents alerted by the screaming found them moments later, and the rest of the night would be full of embarrassing explanations from Bucky and Tony smoothing things over with Jane's irate landlord. Bucky kept by her side the whole time, holding her hand and glancing around for anything threatening. If Jane didn't know any better, she'd think there was still a little dog left in him, but she wisely kept that to herself.


	34. Overheard

**A/N: Requested by marvelfanuniverse  
**

* * *

Darcy Lewis was bored, and a bored Darcy was a dangerous Darcy. You only had to ask anyone who'd ever known her. Bored Darcy was the Darcy that tended to spy and listen in on things she shouldn't. Not because she was looking for dirt to use as blackmail material or even because she was nosy. It was just that she lived in a building where her next door neighbors were both Avengers, and everyone else was either a superhero or a secret agent. She dared anyone to live in that climate and not want to know everything going on always.

So on one such boring day, Darcy found herself outside her best friend's secret laboratory (which wasn't actually a secret but whatever). From within the walls came two voices. One was Jane's, and the other Darcy didn't know. It was definitely male, and deep, and very sexy. And it wasn't Thor, which made Darcy pump her fist and do a little dance in place. Jane was finally moving on with her life and getting herself a new stud. That was Darcy's girl.

"Did you get all the equipment we need?" Jane asked. Her voice was far away, but Darcy could still make out almost every word.

"Most of it. I couldn't find that one rope set."

"The one with the clamps?"

"Yeah, sorry."

Jane mumbled something unintelligible. "It's okay. We can make do without it."

There was some shuffling, of clothes or maybe paper. Meanwhile, Darcy was trying to figure out where this conversation was going, and what on earth Jane would need ropes and clamps for. Most likely it was for something science related. The side of her that occasionally partook in BDSM porn however…

But no. That was about as likely as Tony swearing off technology. Or Natasha giving up super spy work to be a housewife. Jane might not have been all that virginal (Darcy had seen her erotic novel stash), but there was no way she'd ever be the 'tie me down rough me up' type.

Right?

"Jane, where do you want the table?"

"Move it to the middle of the room where I've cleared a space, and make sure the mirror is facing us."

"Already did it. You sure you're okay with having it this time?"

"You know I am. I'm fine with anything you are."

Feminine and masculine giggling mingled together, followed by the whine of metal objects being pushed. Somewhere closer to the door, Jane hummed and typed commands into the computer. A robotic voice confirmed that all settings were now running on automatic. Then more heavy stuff was moved.

Darcy didn't have a clue what to make of any of it. If she was hearing this right, Jane and this guy, whoever he was, were about to get down and dirty right in the middle of the lab.

And there would be ropes involved! Ropes and clamps!

Had that one time viewing of Secretary had this much of an impact on Jane?

But no… no, that couldn't be it. Darcy sat back and closed her eyes, remembering all those deep breathing exercises her yoga obsessed cousin had taught her.

In through the nose and out through the mouth. In through the nose and out through the mouth.

Darcy's mind started to clear and she returned to a more logical train of thought. Obviously, Jane had a new project going on that required the help of an able-bodied man to set up. She needed ropes because she'd just designed a new weather balloon and she was getting ready to test it out. The mirror was for catching the light or something. The flirting was just because she was newly single and he was probably hot. Because everyone here was hot, even the janitors.

Yes, that had to be it. This was just like one of those extended comedy sketches where a guy overhears a double entendre laden conversation between two of his friends that was actually completely mundane and ordinary. If she opened the door, she'd find Jane taking notes or rummaging through her toolbox, fully clothed and normal.

Darcy skipped off, confident in her assessments and that she wasn't about to miss anything potentially mind blowing or emotionally scarring. Maybe she'd go watch Steve and Sam spar. Or check up on Wanda and Vision, see if they were still vague-maybe flirting.

Inside the lab, Jane finally located the handcuffs at the bottom of her junk drawer and handed them off to Bucky. She raised her arms over her head and laced her fingers around the newly installed metal bar that was just low enough to keep her on her feet. Bucky let his hands trail down the length of her naked body. She was completely helpless and exposed this way, but she smiled like she was the one in control.

"See something you like?" she asked.

He slapped her ass in response and she gave a shameless moan.

"Don't get smart," he said, wagging a finger at her. "And from now on, no talking unless I say so, got it?"

"Yes sir," she gasped.

He got to work nibbling at her neck and collarbone. His metal hand closed over her breast, and the sudden burst of cold made her writhe and shriek.

 _'If people could hear us right now…'_ she thought as he got to his knees and draped her legs around his shoulders. _'God only knows what they'd think.'_


	35. Jane's Mom

**A/N: Requested by backwardsandinhighheels.**

* * *

It was not the first time Bucky had met a girl's parents. It wasn't even the second.

Granted, that was back in the forties where all he had to do was bring a girl home on time and pay for dinner. Things were different in the 21st century. Going Dutch was the acceptable norm, and dads weren't as likely to sit with you in the living room polishing their guns while your date got ready. Not that anything like that had ever happened to him, but he had heard stories.

More importantly, Jane was not just another girlfriend. This was the woman he was going to marry. He was going to start a new life with her, have children with her, grow old with her. Once he worked up the nerve to give her the ring he'd been carrying in his pocket for two months, that was the future he looked forward to.

He just had to make a good impression tonight.

"Hurry up or we're going to be late!" Jane shouted to him. He'd been lagging behind, admiring the light fixtures and the lovely still life of a fruit bowl hanging on the wall. It looked just like the one in the lobby.

"I'm coming," he said, shuffling forward.

"Bucky, that snail you were racing beat you ten minutes ago." Jane rolled her eyes went back to take him by the arm. "Come on. Mom is strict when it comes to being on time."

"Sounds like my mom," Bucky said.

Jane rang the bell. An older female voice from within called out that she was coming. Bucky stared hard at the peephole and the swirling light and color within, but looked down when he felt Jane nudge him.

"Don't worry," she said. "Mom's going to love you. You are a natural charmer after all."

"Maybe a few decades ago I was.."

The door flew open, revealing a woman who, at first glance, appeared to be Jane's exact double. Upon closer inspection, the similarities only extended as far as height and hair color. Johanna Foster was an attractive sixty something with hazel eyes and a small, stubby nose. Her mouth was a bit too large for her face, but the way she smiled, no one would ever know. And if they did, they wouldn't care.

"There's my little girl!" Mrs. Foster threw her arms around Jane, hugging her hard enough to make her wince. "Oh, it's so good to see you."

"You too, Mom," Jane said, hugging her back.

"But you feel thin, sweetie. Have you been eating?"

"Yes, mom," Jane said, with all the resignation of someone who'd had this same conversation more times than they could count. "I always eat three times a day."

"Yeah, _now_ ," Bucky muttered.

Though he felt it was a comment worth making, it did have the adverse effect of making him the center of attention. Mrs. Foster let go of Jane and appraised Bucky like he was a bug under a microscope. Now _that_ was something he remembered.

"You must be James Barnes," Mrs. Foster said. She held out a hand. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"You too," Bucky said. He drew a blank right then and looked to Jane. She nodded at him, mouthing 'be charming'. As if it was that easy. "I uh… you're a very beautiful woman. I mean, of course you are. You're Jane's mom."

That sounded a lot better in his head, and now he was thinking of introducing his head to the nearest wall. As it was, when Mrs. Foster broke into giggles, it wasn't in a condescending way.

"You were right, Jane, he is adorable." She leaned over a bit, eyes widening as she examined him from behind. "Mmmm, you were right about _that_ , too."

"What?"

"Let's go inside," Jane quickly pulled Bucky into the apartment. "Dinner smells great and we don't want to let it get cold."

She brought him into the living room, where wine and a plate of hor 'd oeuvres awaited. Mrs. Foster soon joined them.

"Janie, don't tell me you're still nervous about bringing a boy home," she said. "Why, I remember when you were fifteen and you wanted to get that boy in your history class to notice you-"

 _"Mom!"_

"Oh come now, I'm sure James wants to hear this story, don't you?"

Jane glared at him, but unfortunately for her, this wasn't so much the 'I will kill you where you stand' look she reserved for bureaucrats and supervillains. This look skewed more on the adorable side and utterly failed to intimidate him. So much so that he couldn't help pulling her into his arms and kissing her forehead. She mumbled in annoyance, but melted into him as Mrs. Foster beamed.

"That is the most precious thing I've ever seen!" She squealed, clapping her hands. "I must get my camera."

"Now I remember why I stopped bringing guys home," Jane said as Mrs. Foster rushed off.

Bucky kissed her one more time and smiled. "I don't know. I kind of like her."


	36. Closed In

**A/N: Requested by dristi5683**

* * *

He had to rush to catch the elevator down to the ground floor. That's what he got for leaving his wallet behind and only realizing it halfway down the hall. On the thirtieth floor, waiting for an elevator to arrive was only slightly less maddening than it had to be for the scientists three floors up. Indeed, Dr. Jane Foster looked mighty frazzled as she moved aside to give him some space in the car. The button for the lobby was already lit up, so he stood back and let the doors close.

They descended, and no words were exchanged, which was fine with him. Bucky's ability as a conversationalist depended on his mood and right now, he was hungry and still half asleep, and if he didn't get a nice thick chicken sandwich into his system, he was going to lose it.

He never knew what to say around Jane Foster anyway. The few times they'd been in the same room together, he'd tried to introduce himself, but he always got lost in her beautiful brown eyes and forgot his name. Then he found out she was already dating Thor, and he was both a god _and_ a prince. Meanwhile, Bucky was a traumatized and broken killing machine who sometimes freaked out at shadows on the wall.

Bucky kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ceiling. They were ten floors from the lobby, and it didn't look like they'd be stopping to let someone else on. That was fine. Only a few more seconds and they'd be out and going their separate ways.

There came a sharp whine as the car shook and jolted to a stop. Bucky stayed on his feet, but the force sent Jane flying, and she would've landed flat on her face were it not for Bucky's inhuman reflexes.

"Th-thanks," she said, her hands on his biceps as she struggled to stand up.

"No problem."

The intercom overhead crackled to life and FRIDAY's voice rang out.

"Sorry, guys. Just a mechanical problem. Someone's already working on it, and you should be out in no time."

"Do you have an idea of how long it'll be?" Jane asked.

"Can't really say yet, doc. Only just dispatched the repairmen. Probably won't take more than ten minutes, though."

This didn't seem to appease her. Jane leaned against the railing, gripping it so hard that her knuckles turned white. Bucky could see little beads of sweat forming on her brow as the seconds ticked by. He didn't know if he should say something, or if that would just make it worse. He'd seen enough good men lose their minds while trapped in the trenches all day to know what was wrong. Her eyes darted around at the walls; they were in one of the biggest elevators Bucky had ever seen, but it was still four walls completely enclosed with no way out.

The car shook. Jane squeaked and sunk to her knees, wrapping her arms around them.

"Sorry about that," FRIDAY said. "Little accident. Won't happen again."

Bucky nodded, figuring the AI would see it on the security feed. Either way, his concern was Jane right now. He crouched down in front of her, covering her small hands with his large ones.

"It's okay," he said gently. "We're safe here. We'll be fine."

She looked at him. His heart twisted at the tears in her eyes.

"Sorry," she said wetly. "I feel like such a baby, making a big deal over nothing."

"It's not nothing," he said. "You're allowed to be scared."

"I just hate being closed in."

"I know."

"I'm okay when it's only for a few seconds, but it's been ten minutes now, and keep feeling like we'll be in here forever."

"I understand."

She whimpered and put her arms around him. Bucky stilled, not wanting to push her off (she smelled like vanilla and oil and it was amazing) , but not knowing if he should hug her back. It wouldn't be a bad thing if he did, right? He wasn't coming on to her, just comforting her.

He pulled her into his chest, keeping his grip light and grateful that he had his coat and gloves on. She nestled into his warmth without even thinking about it. Her heart rate slowed to normal levels and her breathing softened. She rested against him, tangled around him like a frightened child, and only moved once to whisper in his ear.

"Thank you," she said.

"No problem."

The elevator shook one more time, but when it stopped, Bucky felt them descend. FRIDAY on the intercom thanked them for their patience and promised them a safe journey from here on out. Jane moaned in relief as Bucky helped her up. They got off in the lobby, and Bucky half expected Jane to start kissing the ground and thanking the heavens for getting her out alive.

Instead, she couldn't stop smiling at him.

"I was wondering," she said. "Would you want to get coffee with me sometime?"

Bucky's breath caught in his throat.

"I'd love to, but I wouldn't want to give your boyfriend the wrong idea."

"You mean Thor?" she asked, giggling. "I guess you haven't heard. Thor and I broke up weeks ago."

"You did?"

She laughed louder, and he knew it was because he sounded like a child on Christmas getting the toy they'd been wanting forever. She took him by the hand.

"I'm free now if you have time," she said. "But anytime is good."

"No, no, I'm free."

Steve and Sam could hang out without him today, he thought as he walked with Jane to the nearest cafe restaurant. He wouldn't miss out on this for the world.


	37. Spiritual Encounters

**A/N: Requested by thordisx.**

* * *

Bucky and Jane arrived at the cemetery to find Darcy and Steve waiting for them. Darcy had a little altar set up with candles and crosses and a thick leather book laid out and open to a seemingly random page. Steve, meanwhile, shuffled his feet behind a tree and in general looked like he'd rather be anywhere else but here. Bucky could relate. Oh boy, could he ever.

He'd been in bed with jane when that idiot Lewis started calling their cell phones incessantly. He'd just gotten her out of her bra and he was feasting on her perfect breasts, making her beg for it... and then little miss 'I'm Stupid And Annoying But I'm Also Pretty And Quirky So It's Okay' had to go and do whatever it was she'd done this time to screw things up for them.

"I'm really sorry about this," she said, running to meet them. "Believe me, I wouldn't have called if it wasn't an emergency."

"Yeah, you look to be in real dire straits out here," Bucky said, glancing around at the vast, empty cemetery surrounded by trees and headstones.

"Hey buddy, just because you're my best friend's boytoy and probably know six dozen ways to kill me doesn't mean I won't taser your ass if you get smart with me."

"It's more like eight dozen, and I'll be tempted to try if you don't cut to the chase, Lewis."

Jane shot Bucky a disapproving look. "Just tell us what's going on, Darcy."

Darcy sighed heavily. "Fine. So Steve and I were trying to conduct a seance."

"Let me stop you right there," Bucky said, holding up a hand. "Why were you conducting a seance?"

"Her old friend from college dared her to," Steve piped up.

"I'm telling the story!" Darcy pouted. "Anyway, I got a call from my old buddy, Daryl. He's kind of a paranormal enthusiast, and he's been on all these ghost hunts taking photos of haunted buildings and houses, and he told me this cemetery gets a lot of reports of spiritual activity."

"Yeah, I'm sure it does," Jane said, rolling her eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Darcy snapped.

"Come on, Darcy, you know ghosts aren't real. There's nothing out here but corpses, and they're not about to just spring out of their graves."

"Well duh," Darcy said. "That would make them zombies. We're talking about ghosts."

Jane opened her mouth to continue the debate, and under any other circumstances, Bucky would've happily stood back, held her flower, and let her skin her former intern alive with her sharp, biting words. Under the current circumstances, nobody was getting a shot at her but him.

He could be getting laid right now! Darcy was going to pay for that.

"All right, forget about why you're doing this for a second. Why did you call us out here?"

Darcy bit her lip. "That's the hard part. See, it turns out holding a seance on your own doesn't really work, so I called Steve-"

"I was not helping her, I was trying to make her leave."

"Shut up, Steve, or you're sleeping on the couch tonight! Anyway, I called Steve, and I lit some more candles, and I started some chants to raise the dead that I found in this book I got at the dollar store."

"You got that at the dollar store?" asked Jane.

"Dollar stores are a doorway to another dimension, and quit interrupting," Darcy said. "So I said the chant, and at first, I didn't think it worked because nothing was happening, but then-"

"Does this story even have a point?"

"It will if you guys would let me get to it," Darcy said, hands on her hips. "You should be watching how you speak, Barnes. This mainly concerns you."

"How's that?"

"Well, did you know your parents are buried here?"

He did, and it was the other big reason he didn't want to be here. He visited his family's graves whenever his mood allowed it, usually once every two or three months. In fact, he'd planned to bring Jane on his next visit so he could introduce his mom and dad to their new daughter-in-law. He hadn't been to church once since his rehabilitation, but he liked to think they were up there watching over him.

Unless they happened to be down on earth, floating out from behind Steve looking no different from the day he shipped off to war.

"James!" His mother shouted. She was completely see through and floating a foot off the ground, but he could hear her clear as day. "Oh, my baby!"

Bucky's jaw was on the ground. He couldn't see Jane, but he could feel her squeezing his arm hard enough to snap the bones, and he could relate.

"M-m-m-mom? B-but?"

"Hey now, I'm here, too," his dad said with a grin. "Don't tell me you forgot your old man, son!"

"I- I- I-"

"And who's this enchanting young lady?" His mother floated up to Jane, who sunk to her knees, white as a sheet. "You're just as lovely as I hoped you'd be. I'm so happy to finally meet you, Jane."

"Ghosts aren't real," she said, screwing her eyes shut. "There is no scientific evidence to support the existence of ghosts so you're not really here right now."

"She's a bit of a jumpy one," Bucky's dad whispered in his ear. "Pretty, though. I always knew you'd choose your wife well."

"Th-thanks, Dad."

While Bucky tried to coax Jane to her feet and his mother bombarded them with questions about the wedding, Darcy backed up into the shadows with Steve. She blew out the last remaining candle and tucked the book under her arm.

"See? I told you we'd get something good out of this," she said.

"I guess," Steve said, pulling her into a one armed hug. "I'm still burning that thing when we get home."

"Aw, you're no fun."


	38. Student Life 2

**A/N: Requested by me. To myself. Because I just really wanted to write this. :D**

* * *

Bucky heard a tap on the side of the door. He looked up from his book, and there was Jacob, partially hidden by a chest of drawers and peeking over the bed at them.

"Mom, Dad, I need to talk to you."

Bucky shared a glance with his wife, then Jane smiled and patted the space between them. "Come on over, then."

Jacob did, with only a little hesitation. Now that he was seven, he thought he was too old for sleeping in his parents' bed when he got scared at night. Instead, he cuddled extra tight with his old teddy bear, the one Jane had affectionately dubbed his 'Bucky Bear' due to the toy's apparent resemblance to his father (Bucky didn't really see it).

"So what's going on, kid?" he asked as Jacob climbed over him.

"Well, I'm having an issue at school," he said, "and I think the best way to come to an acceptable solution is to work it out together as a family."

Bucky nodded, having long since gotten used to the stuff coming out of his son's mouth.

"Is something wrong?" Jane asked.

Jacob wrung his hands. "There's this boy in my class. His name is Malcolm, and he's a bully."

"Has he been bothering you?" Bucky asked, sitting up straighter.

"No, not me. It's my friend, Ricky," Jacob said. "Ricky's kind of small and he has bad allergies, so he's sick a lot. He can't really defend himself, so Malcolm thinks he's an easy target."

"Really?" Bucky said, ignoring the knowing smile on Jane's face as he lifted Jacob over his shoulder. "How about we talk about this in private, son? Man to man."

"Okay," said Jacob.

Bucky winked at Jane, who merely smiled and went back to her book. First, she mouthed, 'don't overdo it', and Bucky gave her an offended look. Just what did she take him for?

He walked into Jacob's room and deposited him on the bed. He didn't miss the boy almost reaching for Bucky Bear, even though he stopped in the middle of it.

"So," Bucky said, "you're wondering if it's okay to fight to defend your friend, is that it?"

Jacob nodded. "All the teachers say I should tell them if someone is bothering me, but Malcolm always acts good when the teachers are watching, and the other kids are too scared of him to say anything."

"Hmmm," Bucky rubbed his chin.

"And everyone says I'm really strong for my age, so I bet if I tried, I could beat him. He's big, but it's mostly just fat. I don't think he even knows how to fight."

"Yeah, I know the type," Bucky said. He sighed and got down to his knees, putting his hands on Jacob's shoulders. "Look, Jacob, it's true that you're a strong kid. You're just like Uncle Steve and I. And as you grow up, you'll just get even stronger, and you have to know the right way to use that strength."

"To protect people," Jacob said. This was not the first time they'd had this conversation. "That's why I want to protect Ricky. He's my friend."

"I know, son, and it's good that you're looking out for him, but you have to remember one thing."

"I know," Jacob sighed, hanging his head. "Fighting is wrong, just like the teachers say."

Bucky thought about it. "Well… yes and no. You shouldn't go around picking fights, but if someone else wants to start one, and you can't come to a peaceful resolution, sometimes, it's okay to finish a fight. Do you understand?"

"I think so," Jacob said, and he did appear to be mulling it over. "I'm tired. I think I'll go to bed. Night, Dad."

Bucky ruffled his hair and let him pull the blankets over his head. Being tucked in was another thing Jacob was 'too old' for now. Bucky turned out the lights and left the door open a crack, enough to let a sliver of light in. By then, Jacob was fast asleep.

* * *

Bucky went to pick him up from school the next morning. He hadn't been here since last year when Jacob started first grade, but the school looked no different barring a new paint job and some windows that looked new. He walked around to the playground. The day had just ended, and a lot of the kids came out to play while waiting for their parents. Since that was usually Jane's job, he needed some time to find it. The field behind the school was huge, and most of it seemed like empty grassland with a baseball diamond smack in the middle.

Over on the left hand side was a playground, and that was where he caught sight of a familiar head of dark hair next to the slide. Jacob was playing with a gangly redheaded boy and a much smaller kid with brown hair, who had what looked like an inhaler sticking out of his backpack. The redhead ran off after a minute to meet his mom, leaving Jacob alone with whom Bucky assumed was Ricky.

They were playing with those trading cards Jacob was nuts about. What were they called again? Yu-Go-Gi or something like that. Whatever it was, Jacob appeared to be winning, as Ricky looked at his cards with his cheeks puffed out, and Jacob waited for him to make a move with every appearance of total confidence.

That was when a massive whale of a boy lumbered out from behind the swing set, waited next to the slide for his moment, then rushed out to shove Ricky to the ground. He couldn't move that fast with all his girth, but Jacob still had barely enough time to grab his friend and keep him from falling.

"Whoops," said the fat boy. "Sorry. Couldn't see you, shrimpy."

Jacob checked Ricky first, but the boy didn't seem shaken up. He collected his fallen cards and reorganized them while Jacob dealt with Malcolm.

"Go away," he said, deepening his voice in what could only be a poor imitation of Bucky's 'soldier' voice.

Malcolm's laugh was kind of like a duck honking. "You gonna make me, dork?"

Dork? That was a new one. Bucky rolled his eyes and leaned over the fence to get a better look. Jacob was just about an inch taller, but Malcolm was so fat that he completely covered him from view. Bucky moved his head to the right, ignoring the shaking of the fence as someone else came to stand beside him.

"I said, go away, Malcolm," Jacob took a step closer. "Quit bothering my friends or else."

For a moment, Malcolm was cowed. Perhaps he wasn't used to anyone standing up to him like this. He started to back up, or so Bucky thought. In reality, he needed the momentum to push Jacob as hard as he could, hard enough that had he been dealing with a normal kid, he could've easily thrown him a foot in the air. As it was, Jacob stayed on his feet.

The man next to Bucky laughed. "Atta boy, son! Show that little pansy ass what you're made of."

Bucky furrowed his brow. He turned slowly and took in a bulky man in a camo jacket with a blue baseball cap and a scraggly beard. His meaty hands grasped the metal wiring, and he smiled to show off white, yet crooked teeth, a cigarette clamped between them.

"Excuse me," Bucky said. "Sorry to bother you, but is that your son?"

"Only if you mean the big one," he said. "That's my pride and joy right there. Look at him, he's a chip off the old block."

Bucky hummed. "Well, if you ask me, you shouldn't be teaching your boy to be a bully."

The man rounded on him. "Look bub, I don't know who you think you are, but I'm teaching my boy to be a real man. Not my fault if those little nancy boys got saddled with pussies for fathers that can't do the same."

Bucky could see that he wasn't going to get very far with this guy. Brat that he was, he couldn't help but pity Malcolm that he was stuck with this asshole for a father figure. Hopefully one day, he'd grow beyond his bullying ways and become a better person.

"I'm just a concerned parent," Bucky said, not really wanting to converse any further.

"Then worry about your own damn kids," Malcolm's father said. "I've seen that Jacob kid around, and the only worthwhile thing about him is that sexy little number picking him up every day."

Bucky stilled, his hands falling to his sides as an icy darkness overcame him.

"Are you talking about his mother?"

The man let loose another noxious grin.

"Yeah, man, you should see her. Not much up top, but she's got a hell of an ass. I'd like to plow that all day, let me tell you."

Bucky clicked his tongue. Out the corner of his eye, Jacob had finally noticed him standing there. Bucky winked, knowing his son would understand what he meant, and then he smiled at Malcolm's father.

Five minutes later, Ricky's mom came to pick him up, and Jacob said goodbye as Bucky led him across the street to the car.

"So remember, Jacob, you never start a fight, but if you have to, always finish it," he said.

"Or just shove their head through a wall?"

"Or just shove their head through a wall. Yes."

He looked back for a moment at Malcolm, clutching his stomach as tears rolled down his blackening eyes. A short way away was Malcolm's father, his beaten and bruised body sticking out of the brick wall as he twitched and moaned in agony.

"Actually, maybe we shouldn't tell your mother about this," he said. "She might not agree with us."

Jacob's head tilted to one side. "Are you worried that if she knows, she'll be mad and not have sex with you tonight?"

Bucky gawked at him, shaking his head as he started the car. "Who the hell is teaching you this stuff?"


	39. Chained 2

"Could you please stop moving?"

Jane almost made a huge mistake and looked up. For the last couple of minutes, she'd done an excellent job of studying the lightning shaped cracks spreading along the bathroom wall and not turning her head anywhere near Bucky. Unfortunately, the urinals in this bathroom were not separated by walls, so she had nothing to hide behind and nothing to mask the sound of him doing his business.

"I wasn't moving," Jane said. She shifted her feet. There was a slight disruption in the steady trickle she'd had no choice but to listen to and he growled.

"Like that. What you just did. I feel like I'm about to be jerked backwards when you do that."

Jane sighed and shuffled the tiniest bit closer to him. In spite of her efforts, her ass brushed against his and she jumped back again on impulse. The gold chain swung and blinked in and out for a second, but before Jane could think to pull away it was solid once more. The chain rested there, mocking her, its hum so clear in the noiseless bathroom that she'd be hearing it in her head for days.

"Ten minutes, she said," Jane mumbled to herself. "Ten minutes. That was all she needed to find the spare key. How long has it been now?"

"Four hours," Bucky said. He was just finishing up and Jane could hear his pants rustling. "Four hours and twenty eight minutes to be exact."

"I swear, as soon as we get out of this, I'm having those six credits revoked." Jane followed Bucky to the sink and handed him some paper towels to dry off with. "I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'll do it."

"I'd be happy to beat up anyone you need me to to make it happen," said Bucky.

"Thanks."

In the lobby, the crowd of carnival goers in the food court had dwindled. Before, when Bucky's bladder had demanded that he go and empty it immediately, there had been a whole mass of onlookers as Bucky had to explain to the woman he was handcuffed to that she had to come into the men's room with him and no, it couldn't wait. Now it was down to maybe twenty or thirty people, most of whom were too involved in their own worlds to notice them. Only one little kid pointed them out to his father, who pulled the boy along without sparing them a glance.

They found an empty couch in the lounge where no one else was nearby except a pair of women deep in conversation. It was just big enough for them to sit shoulder to shoulder, the chain draped over their laps and hanging to the floor. It was warm on Jane's leg and felt like hard jello. The scientist in her would be foaming at the mouth for a chance to take these cuffs apart if it had been anyone else but her caught in them.

Just to be sure, she checked her phone one more time for new messages.

"Anything?" Bucky asked.

Jane held up the 'no new messages' screen. "Looks like we're stuck for a while."

She rubbed her wrist over the cuff. It wasn't on so tight that she worried about losing circulation, but it was still as snug as ever despite her frequent attempts to loosen it.

"Dammit," she hissed after another failure left her finger bruised. She sucked it into her mouth to relieve some of the pain. "Why won't it move?"

Bucky raised an eyebrow at her. "Jane, do you know how much I can lift?"

Jane blinked. "Er… not an exact number."

"Let's just say a lot," Bucky said with a smile. "A lot more than you can, that's for sure. If I can't get this thing off, I think it's a safe bet you can't either."

With a mumble and a pout, Jane crossed her arms over her chest and burrowed into the cushions. She then had to sit back up and uncross her arms so that Bucky could take his own arm back. Jane checked her phone one more time and then stuffed it back into her pocket, wishing she could throw it against the wall and watch it break into a million pieces.

She let her head flop to one side. It hit something hard and warm, and by the time Jane realized she was resting on Bucky's shoulder, he'd dropped his head on top of hers, and there wasn't much she could do to move away.

"You're really warm," she mumbled.

"Fast metabolism," he said. "It's good for some things."

Jane snuggled a little closer. Some part of her balked at how brazenly she was acting, but it wasn't like she hadn't dreamt of doing this for months, and it wasn't like Bucky was going out of his way to stop her.

"If we get out of this," she said. "Would you mind crushing Darcy's ipod for me?"

He snorted. "You think I wasn't already planning on that?"

"Then I guess great minds do think alike."

Jane pulled her feet up onto the couch. Bucky moved all the way to the edge to give her room.

"You know, we should also get back at Stark for making these in the first place," said Bucky.

Jane thought about it. "I can rewrite the algorithms for his suit program. Make him fly when he wants to shoot a repulsor blast."

"Sounds good to me."

"But when he gets mad, you'd better not tell on me."

"My lips are sealed, doll."

Jane could think of certain other things she'd rather he do with those perfect pink lips of his, but it was best that she didn't let her mind wander too far into the gutter when they still had the matter of the handcuffs to worry about. Their comfortable silence and Jane's erotic fantasies were sadly interrupted as a nasally voice floated through Jane's ears.

"What on earth do you think they're doing?"

The two women from before were watching them. They weren't even trying to hide it. Whatever they'd been discussing before, it seemed the topic had moved along to the point where they had nothing else to do but eavesdrop.

"Is that woman really chained to that man?"

"They must be sexual deviants."

"I can't believe they would go out in public like that. There are children here."

"Such a shame. And so degrading for that woman. She must not have much self-respect if she'd agree to something so obscene."

Jane noted the distinct 'soccer mom' look to both of them. She didn't like to judge based on appearances, but if anyone looked down on her for it, she'd happily invite the pot to meet the kettle.

"Maybe we should go," she whispered to Bucky. He'd been very quiet, not acknowledging the women or their gossip even though with his enhanced senses, there was no way he hadn't heard it.

He slowly turned to her, with a strange look in his eye that she couldn't place. He spoke in a deep and husky voice: "And what makes you think you can order me around?"

Jane's eyes went wide. Heat built up in her core so fast that it made her legs shake, but somehow, she was able to stand when he quite suddenly jerked up.

"You're going to be punished for that," he said loudly with a wink. "I'll have to put you back in the sex dungeon so I can give you a good spanking, you bad little girl."

Jane had long since caught on to his act, and it was all she could do not to burst out laughing at the women's horrified faces. She lowered her head, a show of submission that helpfully masked her grin.

"Of course, Master," she said. "I don't know what I was thinking questioning you. I need to learn to be a good girl."

"You sure do. Now let's go."

He pulled her along as if leading her by a leash. Jane made sure to nod once at the women and walk bow legged just to sweeten it for them. They waited to get away from the lobby, almost to the main elevator, to fall all over each other laughing. Bucky acted as a brace to keep Jane from hitting her head on the wall. The plates on his shoulder shifted as he was half carrying her. Jane laughed so hard that there were tears in her eyes, but she just couldn't stop.

"I can't believe you did that," she gasped.

" _I_ can't believe I did that," he said. "Did you see them? One looked like she was going to have a heart attack."

"Served her right," said Jane.

The elevator doors opened, and a large group dispersed. Some of them stared at Bucky and Jane. Most of them were recognizable as tower employees, long since jaded by all the insanity and weirdness that happened around here. They probably wouldn't bat an eye if one of them spontaneously grew a second head.

Jane said hello to a few she was familiar with, and once the car was empty, they stepped on. They were the only ones inside for now, a fact Jane was more than grateful for.

"So where are we going to sleep?" she asked. She was pretty much resigned to not getting free before the day was out. Bucky must've been too, because instead of anger or just ignoring the question, he hummed thoughtfully.

"Guess it depends on who has the bigger bed." He watched the numbers go higher and higher as they crossed from the public access levels to restricted space. "What floor are you?"

"Thirty-seventh," said Jane. "I don't spend much time in my apartment, but I seem to recall my bed being a single."

"I have a king size," Bucky said. "Long as you're fine with sleeping with me."

"Are we talking actual sleep, or…"

She giggled as his face turned red. For such a smooth operator, it seemed he could get as flustered as anyone else. He took a deep breath after stammering for a bit and smirked at her.

"That's up to you, doll," he said.

Just like that, they switched places. Now Jane was a ball of sexual frustration and nerves while Bucky was cool as a cucumber and probably enjoying making her squirm. They got off the elevator. No one was around on the 'Avengers and Friends Only' floor, so they could stretch out as much as the cuffs would allow and figure out a plan of action with no busybodies sticking their fat noses into it.

"Uh, before we go sit down, we need to make a little detour," said Jane. She crossed her legs and gestured with her head at the door to the right.

* * *

Approximately nine minutes later, according to Darcy's watch, Bucky and Jane exited the women's room. Jane was wiping her wet hands off on her jeans while Bucky's expression reminded Darcy of that time in third grade when her ultra progressivist homeroom teacher decided eight was the perfect age for children to learn about sex.

They headed into the bar. Tony switched the feed from the hall camera to the bar camera and then shoved Darcy's hand out of the popcorn bowl.

"Quit eating it all," he said. "Didn't your mother ever teach you to share?"

"Didn't your mother ever teach you to shut up?" Darcy shot back.

"That was the worst comeback I've ever heard."

"Well excuse me. They can't all be masterfully witty."

"Clearly."

"Hey, would you two shut up?" Clint shouted from the back of the room. "Some of us are trying to watch."

Natasha, Bruce, Sam, and Rhodey all muttered or nodded in agreement. Wanda and Vision had no such trouble, as they levitated high overhead to get perfect 'balcony' seating. Pepper had little to say about Tony's antics at this point. She just poked him on the shoulder and then snatched a handful of popcorn when he wasn't looking.

"Looks like Jane's going for the alcohol," said Sam. On the screen, Jane had a pair of wine glasses out on the bartop and she was fishing through the cabinet where Tony kept the champagne. "Not such a great idea. Steve gets drunk easier than Bucky does."

"Doesn't mean she can't try," said Darcy. "If she manages it and doesn't have any herself, maybe he'll be loose lipped enough to confess."

"Speaking of which, anyone else want to get in on the betting?" Tony called out. "So far we've got… five hundred from Barton that Jane confesses first, eight hundred from Hill that they try to kiss each other at the same time, and thirteen hundred from Romanoff that neither confesses because they're both so thick in the head."

Natasha shrugged. "I know their type."

"Prepare to eat your words, scary spy lady," said Darcy.

"What is going on in here?"

Everyone froze. The back door was open, allowing bright light to stream into the darkened theater. Steve Rogers cast a shadow over the room. He had his hands on his hips and a stern expression, very reminiscent of a parent with particularly rambunctious children. His eyes scanned the crowd of his teammates. Barton slid out of the aisle seat as Steve walked by while the rest averted their eyes. Only Tony didn't seem to realize the severity of the situation.

"Hola, Cap. Where've you been all day?" he asked.

"With the guests," said Steve, "the same place all of you are supposed to be. What is this?"

"Security footage," said Natasha, the only other person not looking down at their feet. "Thank Lewis for that."

"I may have accidentally handcuffed Jane and Bucky together," Darcy said, twiddling her thumbs. "You know, it's just one of those things… and then when I went to get a spare key from Tony, he thought since they've obviously been wanting to bang each other for a while, we should just leave them like that and let nature take it's course."

Steve crossed his arms, shaking his head at the entire group. "I can't believe this. I can't believe you would do something like this."

Darcy laughed nervously. Even Tony appeared to be cowed at this point.

"Not only are you essentially keeping them captive, you're actually watching it like some kind of reality TV show. And worst of all, you did it without me!"

Steve shoved his way into the spot between Tony and Darcy and snatched up the popcorn bowl. He'd devoured half of it by the time Jane started pulling Bucky in vain towards the bar. Her steps were noticeably off and she was yelling a little louder than was needed.

"Jane, you can't have more, you're already tipsy, and I'm not about to spend the night attached to a drunk girl."

"I need it, Bucky! It calms me down, and I'm nervous."

"Why are you nervous?"

"Why are _you_ nervous?"

"I'm not!"

"Then why are you blushing, Barnes?"

"Why are _you_ blushing, Foster?"

"Tony, please tell me you're recording this," said Steve excitedly.

"Are you kidding? I'm already having the DVDs, Blu-rays, and digital downloads put together."

Bucky and Jane meanwhile had descended into a full on shouting match. Jane tried to walk away, but that just took Bucky with her so they could keep yelling over by the snack bar.

"Buck'll definitely give in first," said Steve through another mouthful of popcorn. "I know him. He'll crack under the pressure like an egg."

"Care to make a wager of that, Rogers?" Tony asked. "The betting pool is open all night long."


	40. Bucky's 100th Birthday

**A/N: Based on a prompt from Startraveller776 and written for Bucky's 100 birthday.**

* * *

As the timer in her head went off, Jane flipped the pancakes over from white uncooked side to golden and fluffy. The smell wafted through the kitchen, truly mouth-watering if she did say so herself. Bucky whined from the table.

"How much longer?" he asked for the fifth time.

"Now if you can't learn to be patient, you'll have to go to your room, young man," Jane teased.

His chair rolled backwards and stomping footsteps were all the warning Jane had before she was spun around and Bucky's lips descended on hers. She moaned and pressed her hands into his hard chest, opening her mouth to allow his tongue in. She would've loved to continue, but her mental timer was ringing and she'd rather not burn down the kitchen over sex.

"Leave it," Bucky growled when she tried to pull away.

"We can do this later," she gasped. "I'm hungry."

"Me too," he ran his hands under her nightgown, palming her flesh. "Starving."

"Bucky, we need to have breakfast."

" _You're_ breakfast."

He kissed her harder, perhaps hoping that would shut her up. In most cases, he'd be right, and even now, Jane was sorely tempted to take this into the living room and just let the pancakes burn. Sadly, her common sense won as usual. She pinched Bucky's hand until he squirmed, then used the distraction to slip out of his arms.

"You're cruel, doll," Bucky grinned, his cheeks flushed.

"You need to eat," Jane countered. She stacked six pancakes on top of each other. "Besides, I made these especially for you on your birthday."

"I've had other birthdays," he said.

"But it's not every day someone turns 100."

"Yeah, I'm really feeling my age," he snorted. "Whaddaya say after this, we go play some shuffleboard and then head down to the rec center for Friday night bingo? Assuming my weakening joints and bad back can take it."

"I don't know about that," Jane giggled. "Yesterday, you could only do six hundred one handed push-ups. Steve did seven hundred."

"With both hands, if you recall," Bucky waved at her with metal fingers.

"Maybe he has weak joints, too."

"You bet."

Jane dabbed some syrup onto her shortstack, while Bucky emptied out the rest on his. They ate silently for a time, barring Bucky's moans of approval.

"You like them?" Jane asked.

"I think this syrup would be sweeter on other things," he winked, making her blush and swat at him, "but this'll do for now."

"Dirty old man," Jane said.

"And yet you stay with me."

They ate until nothing was left but pools of unused syrup and crumbs. Then Jane picked up their plates and carried them to the sink. "So I was thinking, we could take a walk in the park first, then go see that new movie you've been talking about, then have dinner at the sushi place downtown, and if it's still bright out when we're done, we could go sit on the beach for a while. What do you think?"

Jane turned around and was met with Bucky's chest, pinning her in place. Heat slithered up from her core as he pulled her flush against him, his body hard in every sense of the word.

"I've got a better idea," he growled.

The next thing Jane knew, her back was pressed into the dining room wall where it was roomier. Her nightgown hiked up, her panties gone, and Bucky's rough fingers teasing her clit, his lips on hers swallowing her every moan and whimper. He let go only to push his pants down around his ankles.

"Happy birthda-ah!" Jane was cut off as Bucky thrust into her hard. "You have… no patience."

"Don't like it? Just say so." He snapped his hips once, making her scream again. It was clear to both of them that 'stop' was the very last thing Jane would be saying any time soon.

It was equally clear that this was going to be the best birthday Bucky Barnes ever had.


	41. Nightmares

**A/N: This was an anon request.**

* * *

Jane found him on the floor of their apartment, curled up in a fetal position. His shoulders shook and his eyes were bloodshot, staring at nothing. He might not have been fully awake.

"Bucky?" She put her hand on his back, and his breath hitched, but he didn't attack. That was good. They were making progress. "Wake up, honey, it's just a dream."

He gasped and swallowed, jerking his head up as true wakefulness came to him. She kneeled beside him, massaging his back, hitting all the right spots to ease his tense muscles. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Jane wiped them off.

"We're okay now," she said, kissing his stubbled cheek. "You need a shave."

He gave a watery smile. "Thought you liked me like that."

He had a point there.

His arms wrapped around her, his gentleness belaying his massive strength. It was one of many reasons why Jane had fallen in love with him. She stroked his soft hair and kissed him again. His rapid heartbeat slowed and for now, all was peaceful.


	42. Chicken Run

**A/N: This was a request from priestess-of-artemis for her birthday and based on an idea from talesdubh.**

* * *

A chicken ran through Jane's lab.

Actually no. Upon closer inspection, it was a rooster. A squawking, flapping, clucking rooster. In her lab. In Manhattan.

Okay then.

While Jane was still processing this sudden turn of events, a rather irate looking Bucky Barnes appeared. Running at top speed, he tackled the hysterical bird to the ground and a battle between metal armed man and feathery beast ensued. Bucky grunted as the rooster's spurs slashed across his cheek. A few 'cock a doodle doos' cut off after 'cock' later, the bird was safely wrangled. It's flightless wings beat the air, tossing feathers which would have to be cleaned up later.

Bucky held it upside down and away from him to avoid another hit. That cut on his face wasn't deep, but a drop of blood trickled out. He wiped it off and paused as his eyes met Jane's for the first time since he arrived.

"Oh, hi, Jane," he said. The rooster flapped some more, but he didn't seem to notice. "Uh… how's your day going?"

"Not as well as yours, I see." Jane tried to maintain eye contact with him. Usually she had no trouble at all looking at Bucky for long periods of time, but right now, she just… _there was a rooster in her lab!_

"Yeah, FRIDAY ordered some chickens for the food court," he explained, "but something must've gotten lost in translation because they sent us live chickens instead of frozen ones."

"And a rooster."

"And a rooster, yeah." The rooster squawked at Bucky, who tried and failed to glare it into submission. Unfortunately, chickens were just too demonic. Jane knew that for a fact, having spent several summers on her cousin's chicken farm in Ireland.

"Well, once you've got them rounded up, how about dinner?" she asked.

"As long as we stick to pizza and not wings, fine by me."

At least ten more chickens ran down the hall with Steve and Clint on their tail. Both of them looked like big chickens themselves at this point, covered in feathers from head to toe. Bucky grinned apologetically at Jane.

"Go ahead," she said, holding back a laugh.

"Love you." Bucky pecked her on the lips and raced into the hall, the rooster shrieking all the while.


	43. Surfing

**A/N: This was a request from thruthelense.**

* * *

"Since when do you know how to surf?"

Jane ran her fingers through the water. The waves had been small so far, but a bigger one was building fast. They had to stay alert if they wanted to catch it and not get thrown back to shore like piles of garbage by the force of the water.

"It's a long story," she said. "Hard to explain. It's something I ended up doing on a vacation once."

"Let me guess, you just wanted to see me wet and half naked didn't you?" Bucky grinned even wider as Jane's cheeks turned red.

"If I wanted that, I'd have knocked you off your board by now."

"You mean like this?" Bucky snatched the board out from under Jane. She yelped as she hit the water. Coming up for air, she cut off Bucky's laughter by launching herself at him.

"Let's see how you like it!"

He fell backward, the two of them going under just as the wave hit. They were sent spiraling, Jane holding her breath and closing her eyes. She didn't know which way they were going or which way was up, but she clung to Bucky for dear life until it was over. He carried them to the surface. Jane's lungs were burning and she gladly gulped down air as soon as it was available.

"Okay, that did not go according to plan." Their boards floated next to them and the wave had only carried them halfway to the beach.

"Up for trying again?" Bucky asked, blowing at some hair which had gotten stuck to his face. Jane pushed it aside, her fingers running down his cheeks to his chin as he smiled. "If you'd rather keep looking at my pretty face, that's cool, too."

Jane splashed him.


End file.
